Field Methods in Ethnomusicology (Winter 2022): Difference between revisions
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* [[Week 4 assigned readings]] | * [[Week 4 assigned readings]] | ||
= | = Commentaries on the readings = | ||
Click | Click [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OGFc9N5JTkGO0ys3DbpTrhszW9D9c6LOZqFc6xvxpn0/edit?usp=sharing here] to bring up a list of course readings. Click on a reading title to discuss the reading with your colleagues, adding your own summary, critique, and commentary. | ||
= Course bibliography = | = Course bibliography = | ||
[https://www.artsrn.ualberta.ca/ccewiki/index.php/Music_666_Fall_2017_outline#Bibliography bibliography] | [https://www.artsrn.ualberta.ca/ccewiki/index.php/Music_666_Fall_2017_outline#Bibliography bibliography] | ||
Revision as of 08:10, 11 January 2022
Short URL for this website: http://bit.ly/fmeth22
Course outline is here: http://bit.ly/fmeth22o
Overview
This course centers on ethnographic fieldwork, as applied to the study of society and culture, with a focus on sound and music.
While the course is geared especially for ethnomusicologists, its broad coverage of theoretical and ethical issues, fieldwork techniques, inclusion of multimedia technology, and a pedagogy of learning-by-doing (from proposal writing, to fieldnotes, to shooting video) will prove useful to students in a wide variety of social science disciplines, including anthropology, sociology, education, and political science.
Ethnomusicology may be defined as "the meaningful social practice of studying music as a meaningful social practice" (Frishkopf 2011). Within music studies, ethnomusicology's most distinctive practical feature is fieldwork, the principal component of the ethnographic enterprise upon which most ethnomusicological (and cultural anthropological) research is based.
This course aims to provide you with strategies for the acquisition of field methods -- including theoretical, critical and practical dimensions (related to declarative, critical, and procedural (method) knowledge)-- enabling you to perform critical ethnographic fieldwork, to gather ethnomusicological data, and to develop musical ethnographies.
For the first few weeks, we take up theoretical and critical overviews of fieldwork and ethnography including – most importantly – issues of truth, power, and ethics. Subsequently, we begin to focus on acquisition of perspectives, facts, and procedures—technical and social—pertinent to critical ethnomusicological data collection via participant observation, interviewing, field notes, audio and video recording, and still photography.
Here the course shifts gears, from reading about fieldwork to actually doing it. You will learn to transcribe and edit field materials, and to analyze and code fieldwork data in preparation for ethnographic writing. We will discuss techniques and strategies for molding multimedia materials into presentable formats, including ethnographic and documentary film, and development of multimedia websites, blogs, wikis, and podcasts.
You will also learn to develop effective ethnographic research proposals centered on fieldwork (including preparation of budgets and timelines), suitable for funding and guiding your research project. Most students should consider this course as an initial step towards their MA or PhD thesis, and are encouraged to use projected the projected thesis topic in all assignments whenever possible.
Ethnomusicology is a diverse set of practices, and complete training in all field methods is not possible in the span of 13 sessions. In particular, we will not be able to study all technical subjects (audio recording/editing, photography, video recording/editing) in depth. Mastery of any one of these subjects requires an enormous investment of time - in both study and practice - and digital tools are constantly evolving. Rather the focus here is on a broad spectrum of introductions—methods for acquiring methods, learning how to learn—in the hopes that you will thereby be enabled and motivated to explore further on your own in the months and years to come.
Course outline
Click here for detailed course outline, including assignments
Science and technology underlying fieldwork recording
Physical concepts & demonstrations
Light, vision, and photography
General resources for fieldwork
General resources for Field Methods in Ethnomusicology
Readings and reserve
Reserve Click here to locate Library reserve list.
Click here for scanned online readings
Assigned readings for weeks 2-4
Commentaries on the readings
Click here to bring up a list of course readings. Click on a reading title to discuss the reading with your colleagues, adding your own summary, critique, and commentary.