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?