Discussion Questions for Hood

Discussion Questions; for all responses, provide examples and specific line citations.

Remember, each student is asked to provide a minimum total of 12 lines in response to the following questions, using the "Comments" feature below. Please indicate clearly which Discussion Question you are responding to in your comment(s). [Edited to add]: You are encouraged to respond not only to the Questions but also to other seminar members' comments.

Also note: Comments function for this set of Questions will be open only through Nov 23 11am; you must complete your comments prior to that deadline.

1. Hood notes that even “ingenuous” music, from elsewhere than the Industrial West, entails training in basic musicianship. This is another observation that might seem obvious in hindsight. Why does Hood make such an "obvious" point? Is he responding to an alternate position that might believe "ingenuous music" does *not* employ "training in basic musicianship"? Why might opposing scholars *need* to hold this view?

2. Be prepared to precisely define the expectations Hood assigns to "bi-musicality." He is actually quite specific about all the factors that go into cross-cultural musical competence. In other words, what, for Hood, is the "yardstick" which reveals a sufficient ability to cross musical/cultural boundaries?

3. Hood is a proponent of musical participation in ethnomusicology. What other philosophies of ethnomusicology might he be contesting?

4. The idea that cultural or ethnic background precludes musicianship also may seem like an outrageously dated (and implicitly racist) opinion--one which is now thankfully, largely, disappeared. However, the idea that ethnicity or "cultural characteristics" somehow might *enable* certain kinds of musicianship does still appear--it is the old question of "nature vs nurture". What doors does such a presumption close or open? In what example idioms?

5. What is the “laundry list” of specific musical skills he says are essential for “bi-musicality”? What learning approaches does he describe for addressing specific skills?

6. What *specific reasons* does Hood provide justifying the selection of improvisation as "the crowning achievement"? Why is improvisation the last, most difficult hurdle? What are all the constituent elements that Hood says must go into fluency in improvisation?

7. What is the full range of "knowings" he says are essential "rules" that must guide improvisation?

8. How does Hood fold this argument back, away from "other" musics, to question or expand approaches to "own" musics?

Discussion Questions for Doubleday

Discussion Questions; for all responses, provide examples and specific line citations.

Remember, each student is asked to provide a minimum total of 12 lines in response to the following questions, using the "Comments" feature below. Please indicate clearly which Discussion Question you are responding to in your comment(s). [Edited to add]: You are encouraged to respond not only to the Questions but also to other seminar members' comments.

Also note: Comments function for this set of Questions will be open only through Nov 21 11am; you must complete your comments prior to that deadline.

1. What is the role of “history” or “historical analysis” in this article? Juxtapose this article with Wiora and use this article to reflect upon and critique Wiora.

2. The article is densely referential and very meticulous with detail; why does Doubleday do this?

3. What sorts of historical data does Doubleday employ? With what sorts of goals?

4. How might we regard this approach as a kind of “ethno-history”? What tools might an ethnomusicologist need to draw upon in order to do this kind of work?

5. To what extent does Doubleday use these approaches in order to “redress prior errors”? What might those errors have been? What might have caused those errors? What agenda might inform her work?

6. To what extent might Doubleday’s article be used as a model for other “ethno-histories”? To what extent does her approach address problems ethnomusicology has had with either archival or historical phenomena? In other words, does Doubleday provide models for “history tools” to add to the ethnomusicologist’s methodological toolbox?

7. What is the ethnographic value of myths, lies, inaccuracies, or half-truths? What sorts of insights might analysis of such “fictional” information provide?

8. Doubleday points out that characteristics associated with women as drummers have also been equally associated with other marginal groups: transvestites, eunuchs, gypsies, and similar groups. Several questions arise:

• Why are these various marginal groups linked, treated, or regarded similarly?
• What is the interplay between marginalized social status and the practice of music?
• What is the role of music, ritual, and marginal identity in ritual (and therefore in liminality)?
• What is the relationship of marginality, liminality, and power?

Discussion Questions for Dunbar-Hall

Discussion Questions; for all responses, provide examples and specific line citations.

Remember, each student is asked to provide a minimum total of 12 lines in response to the following questions, using the "Comments" feature below. Please indicate clearly which Discussion Question you are responding to in your comment(s). [Edited to add]: You are encouraged to respond not only to the Questions but also to other seminar members' comments.

Also note: Comments function for this set of Questions will be open only through Nov 21 11am; you must complete your comments prior to that deadline.

1. What were the historical and situational factors that made Bali a “classic site for ethnomusicological investigation”?

2. What is the relevance to the term “cultural tourism” to the situation of Bali? To this study?

3. In what ways does this article “problematize” the relationship between observation and participation? Between “self” and “Other”?

4. In what ways does colonialism (or its aftermath) impact on the situation in Bali? How does the Indonesian government cope with colonialism? How is colonialism implicated in modern ethnographic fieldwork there?

5. Provide an explanation of the way in which the technical term “spectacle” applies to the situation of religious music in Bali.

6. Provide a definition and a detailed discussion explaining the relationship between “public” and “private” in the rituals Dunbar-Hall describes.

7. How is “creativity” manifested in Balinese music and religious ritual? What are the procedures that Balinese artists use to “make new art”? And, very importantly, how do such procedures respond to Western/outside analyses of creativity? What are the problems?

8. Using the construction “both/and”, explain the ways in which music, ritual, performance, participation, and believe interact in Balinese sacred musics. I expect substantial detail here.

Added comments, and, links to team home-pages

Folks:

I have added comments for all (well, almost all--Liz outsmarted me!) blog posts to date. Please read and consider those comments.

Also, I have added links to all non-WebCT project sites to the blog homepage (lower-right menu, see "Links"). Please check that list and visit other teams' pages. And, if your project site is not represented in that list, please send me that link ASAP. This of course presumes that the website exists...

will add comments to new posts shortly

Folks:

Just got back into town late last night from AMS National meetings. Will add comments to the new blog postings before Tuesday 11.7 class. Thanks for your patience.

MUHL5321

MUHL5321

I've started uploading videos to You Tube, which of course can be embedded to other websites. Perfect for ethno class. I don't know if anybody else is dealing with video, but it's free. The video must meet two rules: 1. less than 100MB 2. less than 10 min.
That's for each video uploaded, not your total space. You have unlimited space.

Here's just some of the things I've uploaded.

Ethno
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoxX2BVOeCA


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzdbFmGhb3g

Personal
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzrf06zhBIs