Mariachi presentation (I, K, S)
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://www.geocities.com/superawesomemariachiproject/
1. Issues of CONFLICT: the reality is that one of the principle functions which underlie various human communicative art forms is the resolution (e.g., “negotiation”) of conflict. Humor does this, music does this, debate does this, ritual does this, etc. In the absence of these communicative forms, conflict is irreconcilable. In the case of your own team’s individual fieldwork, what sorts of conflict arose: between informant groups? Between informants and fieldworkers? Between fieldworkers? Provide an example (anonymized if you wish) and articulate ways in which these various communicative arts did or did not play into conflict’s resolution.
2. Further to the above: think about the tensions that emerge via mis- or incomplete information. In the fieldwork situation, there are many more things that you don’t know than that you do. In what ways can observing conflict—or even participating in its resolution—help you understand complex social dynamics? What are the implications of this? Can you use “negative” reactions from informants or other persons to understand various types of social sub-texts? Of social priorities?
3. Excellent commentary about “comments”; confirms the unavoidable reality that, in cross-ethnic situations, racial tensions are present. They are unavoidable and they will impact the situation. Therefore, it is necessary to recognize their presence and think with some sensitivity and some insight about how to cope with them. Sometimes this will entail explicitly articulating the “elephant in the room” (e.g., the tension of which all are aware but of which no one has spoken yet) and sometimes the opposite: finding indirect ways of signaling that you are aware of and sensitive to these issues. Sometimes it is a product of using or not using certain words, body language, tones of voice, and so on. Provide and describe at least one example of a situation encountered in your own fieldwork in which you consciously chose a strategy to address the conflict.
4. Note the strategy, in presentation, of one-speaking while one is surfing through the site. This gets at an issue: the practical implications of presenting your material. If you were to present your website on your own, what would you need to do to streamline and maximize the impact of your presentation? If it is helpful, ask yourself what you would do in a future presentation of the material?
5. Use of setlist as a way of getting repertoire “maps”. In your particular fieldwork, how did musical repertoire map ways that informants saw their musical world? How did it map responses of musicians to changing contexts? Provide specific examples.
6. Note this team’s nice description of performance practice and behavior (and diagrams for same). How can you use analysis of physical layout to get at relationships, priorities, social connections, etc? Give at least one example, from your own fieldwork, of ways in which physical space map social organization.
7. Note Seong’s good observations about his attendance (at River Smith’s) and the audience’s focus upon band, and also the roles of certain “guest singers,” who appears to attend purely for the purpose of participating in the music. What does that reveal about the relationship between musicians and their audience? Are there gradations of “intimacy” between audience and musicians? Provide at least one example, with commentary, of the observable behaviors which diagram these relationships.
8. What would be the role of commentary about the demographics (ethnicity, age, economic class, etc) of audience, and what would be the best way to present this commentary? Provide examples of “demographic analysis” of your own target audiences.
9. This team made observations about the impact of certain songs upon certain “insider” members of the audience; what tools could get at and help the fieldworker understand the impact of specific texts or pieces upon “insider listeners”? Provide example from your own fieldwork.
posted by CJS at 3:27 PM
5 Comments:
1) The conflict between ourselves and our informants never truly was resolved. Not all of our informants had beef with us, either, though. Initially, when we entered the room and everyone was kind of surprised that we were there still, Ian tried a little almost-humor to loosen things up, but later on when we left the room, it had obviously made no difference after discovering what was on the video. We even tried to relate to them a little musically...asking them about the music, sharing our own musical experience when asked, showing a lot of interest in the mariachi music, and that didn't seem to help much either. We were afraid to debate with them, because we did not want to lose our informants, and because we were not close enough to them, we never had the opportunity to gain a lot of experience with anything ritual. Dr. Smith told me in an email that sometimes informants just aren't easy to work with, and I believe that this was our situation. We still attended fieldwork things after discovering the conflict, but we were a lot different in how we approached going there and interacting with them, trying not to step on anybody's proverbial toes.
2) Observing this conflict and attempting to resolve it did help us understand certain social dynamics. We learned, also, that it is best to make sure that the entire group knows that we are coming (or at least the property owner)...because one informant could forget to tell another informant, and before you know it, you have become an uninvited guest, even though you were in fact invited. It helped us to understand the heirarchy of the group, as well. The guitarron player was the king. Through him, everything flowed. After that, it is different in rehearsal settings and performance settings. In rehearsal settings, I would next rank our violinist friend, because we observed him giving a lot of musical input and making alterations to the music that maybe someone lower on the scale would not have done. In a performance setting, I would rank the vihuelist next because of his control over what repertoire is played and the fact that, from what I observed, he is the "face" of the group in public. The rest of the group seems to be (pretty much) on the same level. While our violinist was the one who invited us to the rehearsal, the guitarron player was not aware that we were going to attend, and neither was his wife, and therefore we had walked ourselves right into a situation which...was probably not good for us for future research. Had we understood that the guitarron player was essentially in charge, we may have called the group's "publicity" number and gotten in touch with him prior to our attending.
4) If I was to present the website on my own, I may have approached it a bit differently. (For one thing, I would have slept the night before so that I could form complete sentences during the presentation) I would have started with a brief explanation of our abstract and what we had intended to do during the course of our study. I would have then progressed into the background information, making sure that all of our audience understood what, for example, all of the instruments were...since I provided pictures of each. Then I would have gone over the fieldwork and what we experienced there, showed some video, showed some photos, listened to an audio clip, shown the set list (which Ian did a fantastic job with, I think, in relating it to everything) tied our strategies in to some of the readings we did (because we could have done that very easily by clicking the "essays" or "bibliography" links) and then gone to the conclusions page, where I had spent a lot of time drawing the conclusions to put on there. I think that our presentation went alright, and this is in no way a criticism of Ian or Seong, but I would have gone about it a bit differently since we did in fact have more information to present than we actually got to, and if we had maybe had a "script" of some sort, or an outline, of what we were going to cover, we could have maximized the information presented in that short amount of time.
1. We did have a problem with someone who we thought would be a good informant. We had a pastor at one of the local churches here. He knew of some gospel groups and at one time had a gospel group singing at his church. Bob called him to see if he could get some information on it, but it wasn't meant to be. The informant was very time-impaired in calling Bob back, and in the end, did not call him back at all. He did not return Bob's calls, so we had to give him up as an informant. Sometimes it's just easier to break ties and move in a different direction.
2. I think there was a time at the beginning of the fieldwork that I felt the elephant in the room syndrome. I walked in, and I knew people didn't know what to think about my prescence there. I was just talked to a member of the group about coming to a rehearsal, and not the song leader himself. I came up to him and asked if it was ok that I sit in on a rehearsal, and he said it was fine, but that I was going to sing. People don't just sit in, they participate. I was glad that it was ok I stay, but the other members were still hesitant at my arrival. As the weeks wore on, people got more and more comfortable with me either being there, or knowing the white kid is showing up again. I think they were ok that I was there because as a voice, I did add some sound. The male section was not as strong as the altos or sopranos, so I think they were relieved somewhat at my prescence.
9. I think there is an impact of certain songs upon certain people in the group. The surveys speak to just that. Some of the members in the group listed songs that we sang as songs that were influential because of the text and the meaning behind the song.
1&2. yeah, conflicts can definitely lead you to asking questions (albeit cautiously) that you might not have otherwise. In our case, the breaking off of one group from an already well established group was one point of contention that helped us to understand a little better that each group is VERY serious about originality, insofar as when it comes to competition.
5. in our research, a songlist was not discussed as much as order of dances. to that end, festive dances always began & ended the performances, however the dance differed from group to group. the Aztec dance that began one group's performance was so alien, so different, that (at least to me), it seemed that the focus of this group was to differentiate themselves from the others (of which they were once a part?).
2. Perception and communication can be great barriers in human relations. It's easy to fall prey to this evil. We have all experienced and created this environment. In this context I wanted to get away from the negativity instead of facing it and changing it for the better. Part of this is that I felt I did not have the time to nurture the problem. Things are usually not easy to acqure in this world. If they were, we would all be bored.
5. The repertoire map showed that this group was not always thinking in terms of creating art or community, but also of entertainment.
7. Intimacy was created with this group in a physical aspect, also. The group would crowd around a table to create a very personal experience.
1.We mentioned what we thought might be a conflict. Debbie broke from Zanaida and formed her own group. We could sense tension when the other group was mentioned. Debbie never wanted much to do with us, and I wonder if it could be because we had already work close with Z’s group.
6.At Z’s practice, the parents stay and watch. I sit in the room against the walls or on the floor near the walls. This shows how open of an organization this is. There is trust between parents and Z. The parents see what they are working on and they are very present to support the kids.
8.This was something that amazed me. Our Audience at the Fiestas Patrias was mostly Hispanic. I was expecting this. At the Day of the Dead, I was also expecting a strong Hispanic representation. However, there were mostly white folks at the events. I was so shocked. I made me wonder these people were celebrating the Day of the Dead, which conflicted with the Tech vs UT game. I knew why I was there… research and fieldwork, but why were they there?
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