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
19 Comments:
3. Well, I can think of a situation where the informant decided to solve the problem for me. Around my third trip to the venue, I asked to talk with the bass player to make sure it was OK for me to take some pictures and possibly record a couple tunes. He then joked about being glad I was not from the border patrol because he’s an illegal immigrant. I think that Alfred used to humor to shy away from the fact that I was the elephant in the room…not him. He may have been the only Hispanic in the room, but I was the only little white girl under 50 years of age. To me, this showed that everyone can potentially be an outsider, in one aspect or another and it might be better to address those facts head on in some situations, and better to not say anything in others.
7. I believe there are certain levels of “intimacy” between the audience and the performers. There are many different types of audience members. 1. The unknowing member who stumbled into a performance and didn’t know it was going on and really doesn’t seem to care either way about it continuing. 2. The casual listener, who sings when they know the words and zones out or talks to friends when they don’t. 3. The fan, who comes to hear the band. They may eat, they may not; they just came to hear the performers. 4. The groupie, which follows the performers to different performances and venues. These are just my personal observations about audience members and I’m sure there are more levels within levels that can be observed.
8. I think at every venue, we could not ignore the fact of the audience demographics. They were so pronounced in most places that you just have to notice it. I’ve mentioned this in some other comments, but our informants used the audience demographics to map out what they were playing that night. They take requests and play right to the audience with a conscious choice about what song would fit well with these people or, maybe this song will put some people on the dance floor. The audience at one venue was 50 years old and up, and the next place, it was strictly college aged students (about 18-24) and the informants played right into their hands and gave them what they wanted to hear.
3) In the slaton party setting, beofre we entered with the band, they asked if I was ready. I told them yes, they told me to walk up to a cooler and grab a beer, and say "Tio!!! You don't remeber me?" I found out later that "Tio" means uncle. The interesting thing was it seemed more like our informants were interested in my reactions, than I was in theirs. They even asked me at later interview how I felt there, and I told them, without sugar coating it, and they were very understanding. I guess in this way we all learned from each other.
4) I think in our presentation we would have had a better plan. I was amazed at how fast ten minutes went, and had so much more I wanted to say. I think we should have sat down more and talked more about what we would talk about and for HOW LONG.
9) I believe we could have talked to some of the audience members, and asked them about the songs and why they were moved by them. I think we could have gotten better translations of the text. Our informants would give us the jist of the plot or story, but a word for word translation would probably be better.
1-2. Toward the middle of the semester our group had some communication struggles that resulted in some conflict that we where able to work through. When ever you have a group of four great thinkers there is a very good chance that there are going to be some conflict in interest into what priorities are most important as well as the organization to which our research operated under. I think that what made this conflict spiral out of control was each member of the groups effort to try and come up with a solution on his/her own. Once we got together and discussed what was frustrating each group member we where able to draw up some compromise and come up with some solutions that everyone could agree upon and work with in order to make the rest of the semester go quite smoothly. We where very fortunate to be a group of hard workers and when we put that work ethic into our relationships with one another we where able to make some great things happen!
4. I agree with Josh in that the 10 minutes went by incredibly fast. If I had the opportunity to go back and do the presentation over again I thin k that I would have suggested to the group that we met for just a little while and run through the presentation once or twice and time it. That way we could get a better feel for how quickly we needed to move from topic to topic to cover everything we found most important to talk about. If you think about it, with four group member with 10 minutes of presentation time that is only about 2.5 minutes of speaking time per person if we where to divide it up evenly. So each group member being assigned to a particular aspect of our field work was good, but we all should have probably practiced saying everything we wanted to say in about two and a half minutes.
1. As far as our group, we did have some conflict mid-semester. Everyone, I think, was a little frustrated, a little unclear on everyone else's feelings about the project and each other, and a little perplexed when it came to trying to get everything back to running smoothly. Once we finally got to sit down and speak up about what was going on, things were resolved pretty easily, but since everyone was afraid of offending someone, or being seen as behaving childishly, it took us a while to get to that point of sitting down to solve the problem.
As far as fieldwork, there wasn't a lot of direct conflict, but one could get the feeling that Melt and Jake's were at odds with each other over how salsa night should be done. Jake's wanted numbers in attendance, and Melt, while welcoming people, wanted to maintain a classy and (nicely) discriminating atmosphere so that people could be relaxes and have a good time. Jake's focused more on alcohol sales and money, while Melt charged no cover and while drinks were available, they weren't pushed as much.
5. Since not many of the participants in the salsa nights were musicians, pedagogy and repetoire was a sort of muddy thing to figure out. In our interview with DJ Mario, however, he explained how he used different kinds of music in different ways. For example, the "classic" songs that the audience knew were used for getting people on the dance floor because those songs were familiar and people knew how to make the dances work with the song. Newer songs are introduced sporadically to keep things from bogging down, but to keep the interest of the crowd and allow people to become familiar enough with the music to dance to it, while some songs, which were either new, or not very popular, were used sometimes to get people off the dance floor and to the bar. For example, if there's a drink special, the DJ might play something that people aren't familiar with so that they won't really want to dance - which leaves the bar open.
7. One of the things that I found very interesting, which was at Melt, was that everyone, from every role, interacted freely. For example, Jacob (in charge of salsa night), and DJ Mario (in charge of music) knew and were friendly with not only each other, but people like Joe (regular) and friends who were interested in salsa. They were also very open about salsa with "newbies" like our group. Joe, a regular, often danced with new people at some point during the night, especially if one of his regular dancing partners wasn't there. He was happy to teach people the basic steps and help them be comfortable on the dance floor.
Danielle’s Mariachi (I, K, S) Comments
2. Conflicts or negative reactions can often reveal points of contention and contestation within a community. What issue upsets people and why that particular issue upsets them can also highlight priorities that may not necessarily be visible to an outsider. Likewise, conflicts can reveal power balances and power structures in place or that may be in the process of changing.
6. Physical layout can be helpful. For instance, Melt’s layout reveals a dancing priority because the tables and bars are all centered around and facing inward towards the dance floor. This made dance the center of attention and always at the forefront of the action. Also, it was easy to spot regulars, some of whom had tables reserved for them and sat in exactly the same booth or table each Wednesday night.
9. When certain songs have a strong impact upon certain audience members, of course it is important to know the text or the translation of the text, who the song is by, and where the song came from. It is also helpful to know the biographies of the individuals affected. One could also ask the musicians why they chose to play that certain song, and how they think it impacts the audience. It is also important to ask a wide range of people what that song means to them as well, so that you receive a wide range of meanings and now have a context in which to place the song and its impact.
1. If conflict arose within our communities due to our presence it was unseen and unfelt. I want to reiterate the kindness and welcoming nature of the Korean and Chinese churches. Immediately, I was welcomed and invited to participate in many of their social functions. Quite a departure from some of my own experiences within my own community of believers.
6. Both the Korean and Chinese church has physical space allocated for meals. One picture that the New Testament speaks clearly is the communal aspect of the early believers. They shared property, belongings and meals. The fact that these churches have kitchens with connecting dinning areas speaks to the strong sense of community and the preservation of the idea of meal sharing.
4. If I had to present by myself, When speaking on certain aspects such as community and worship, I would navigate to our photos or diagrams. I would introduce audio/video media with a short introduction and know in advance how much and of what section I would share. I would avoid displaying the prose or long text sections because it is absolutely terrible when a presenter reads while displaying the text.
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?).
4. To do a presentation like this by yourself I think having several different windows open would be very helpful. Assuming you know what you’re going to speak about, prior to beginning your presentation you can pull up all of the pages you’re going to show the audience while you talk. You should also pull up all of the media ahead of time so that you don’t have to tap-dance while it loads. Then as you give your presentation, you can pull up the different windows corresponding to the appropriate points in your presentations
5. One of the continual assignments for the SPC bluegrass students is to bring in songs/tunes to perform. Since this particular ensemble is comprised of two different generations of bluegrass musicians, the repertoires they chose show different musical priorities and different ideas about changing musical contexts. The older generation tended to choose repertoire from older more “traditional” artists. The younger generation chose a lot of Bela Fleck and Allison Krauss songs/tunes.
6. I think physical layout gets at a lot of things. It’s interesting how different cultures perceive physical space differently. If the musicians and dancers occupy the same physical space, then that is a physical manifestation of a connection between music and dance. R defines his own idea of the social organization of bluegrass when he talks about the difference between the classroom musicians, the professional musicians, and the “real bluegrass” that everyone participates in during “picking.”
Great website! We did not have any problems with race/ethnicity but age. One instance was when we first went into Koko's. As soon as we walked in we were stared at with a look of confusion as if we were was lost or needed to use the bathroom. I guess it does not help to be the youngest group of people in there, maybe between twenty-thirty years younger besides the drummer. But as soon as we introduced ourselves then explained the reason that we were there it was ok. And as we went there more often we were not stared at with confusion but treated like an actual patrons who were there to drink and listen to the band.
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.
4. If I had to present the material via website by myself I would plan out the web site to contain links on each page leading to material that would follow what was just presented. Another possibility would be to create a page that shows the connections between and has links to other pages containing the in-depth information. First idea: Page A (with all material) with a link to Page B. Page B (with all material) with link to Page C, etc. Second Idea: Main Page containing all concepts - A à B à C, with concept being a link to the in-depth information.
6. Size of the room, shape of the room, who sits/stands where and with whom gives insight into relationships, social structure, and priorities. At the Meadow Musical, as I have said in the past, the bluegrass jam session was in a small back room. There was very little room for listeners to get out of the way so they would get included into the activity by singing along. The bass was in the middle of the room, I believe this to be more from the fact that the instrument is quite large rather than any preference for everyone to hear the bass. The musicians were in a loose circle with the main singer/guitar player and the banjo player more towards the center and into the “spot light”. I have stated in a previous post that the size of the room reflects the intimacy and personal nature of the music as apposed to the lack there of from the country music in the large hall.
7. A lot depends on the situation in which the interaction is taking place. When watching RTB perform, the interaction between him and the audience ranged from him singing and being the “background music” to speaking and an audience member responding. This range of interaction, with some swells and recessions, reflects the beginning up until my point of departure. The interaction grew as the night went on, a big factor in this, I believe, is the amount of beer and alcohol ingested by both RTB and the audience. As most of us know, more beer = less inhibitions.
4. I think that a big part of doing a presentation like this on your own is the preparation, not only preparing before hand what needs to be said, but even just before the presentation, maybe having several windows prepared in order of what you are planning on speaking about almost like a power point. I also agree with Jbuckner on showing more pictures rather than prose just for the sake of the audience.
7. People coming to see a group purely to participate with the singers shows that this particular group really emphasizes audience participation in their performance. I think this can also be a good tool for creating a group of followers who pay continually.
8. Demographic study played an important role in our research because much of Mariachi Amistad’s performance practices were decided by the type of audience they were playing for.
1. We encountered a conflict that arose because of the art-from. With everything competitive come conflict of groups trying to ot-do eachother. With out actually giving us details, one dance leader gave us the impression that another group had broken off of hers and she would "probably not make it out to their performance this year"... We also found it very hard to get in touch with or speak to this dance leader with whom the conflict had arose.
3. It is always important to show yourself as the one being taught, or the new comer, instead of being the dominant personality in a new situation. In just about all field-work situations, I had to (at least in my head) deal with not being of the ethnicity of the majority of the dancers, the teachers, the parents, and the audience. By presenting myself as open and non-judgemental, it we easy to over come.
4. If these had been done individually I think that they would have had to be.. maybe better planned? I don't say this in a negative context. In order to present the appropriate information in the short amount of time given, the individual presenter would have to know exactly what to say, where on the website to go, and how to get there. It is harder doing it alone. I've presented at a timed conference before... you have to know exactly what you are doing or they will cut you off...
Actually, when I was attending Mi Tierra’s rehearsal, I did not feel the conflict between us and them. The reason why I did not feel that way is because I am used to be that situation which Ian and Kelli felt the conflict at the rehearsal. As I am one of the foreigners, I am always facing that conflict to stay in U.S. I think that Mi Tierra’s people felt same way in the rehearsal time. So I don’t want call that situation as the conflict. For me that was just natural appearance between two different cultures.
1. There were definitely a few occasions between some possible informants and my team members that some conflicts arrose mearly out of misunderstandings. Some people found it hard to believe that a white college student could really be interested in such a strong Mexican genre and there were a few occasions where people got defensive and would be rather rude about certain topics.
2. Talking about the above situation I think it was a huge eye opener for me to see how some of "my people" would react to this because they would at times seem to really be upset that my group members were interested in this information and at times seemed to give me interesting looks because i was with them, this was a huge shock to me and at times was hard to understand.
3. This makes me think about the party that we went to that was probably 99.9 % mexican, the .1 percent being the one group member of mine who wasn't. This was obviously a very akward moment for my teammate and he definitely received some looks from certain family members, but he was smart and walked in with the group and stayed close to people he knew. He kept his camera out and i thought it was interesting that when people were curious as to what HE was doing there they would ask the Mariachi leader or even me at times but were pretty comfortable with the idea that he was there researching mariachi and it wasnt a factor from then on really.
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?
1. Conflict. Well as we saw, our group faced at least two different barriers in that regard. As for my phone conflict, I wish I could say I did something elaborate with the communicative arts, but by going in person, with a second person, we pulled an end run over the phone receptionist. There is an art even to that. I did make sure to avoid burning down the bridge that seemed to be closed. What is unknown is whether or not I/we would have suffered consequences had I not made every effort to be a saint when I spoke with the woman on the phone and to say thank you and all.
4. I can say that this was definitely a weakness of ours. If it were up to me, I would have timed it out and outline scripted it according to ideas rather than individuals’ contribution. I think it would have made it more cohesive, linking each set of problems to the next. I felt like because we each tried to address areas that we were more active in, we were kind of battling a bit over who did what. I wanted to find a clip and Curtis wanted to set up his next point.
6. One of a number of “lesser” concerns in our fieldwork was this very thing. However one very interesting observation came out of our time at the Texas Café. The most important aspect of physical space is the fact that the place was way too small for it to be that loud! The physical space was inhabited by sound. This is partly why I think it is interesting that it the music seemed so adaptable. It fit the bar area quite well, and of course, the dance floor was great. However, it still tended to penetrate to the back portion which was laid out in more of a restaurant-style atmosphere. The interesting observation was that there were a group of late 30’s-looking single women playing pool. Some were fairly casually dressed and some looked like were dressed for some place else….
Ok, so that being the case, I find it interesting that they choose to go there, drink, play pool, and watch sports. The interesting thing is that they paid no interest to the music being played, yet it was so penetratingly loud, that it certainly affected everything that was happening for me, given that I’m not as used to it. I think this makes a stab at something deeper with regards to music in general. You can become so overwhelmed by music that you actually become desensitized to it. On the other hand, with soft music, you can be drawn in, because it is almost a secret told in public, and if you’re not deathly silent, you might miss it!
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