Essay: Accessing the Sonic and the Social: An Evaluation of Methodological Shifts in the Ethnography of Performance

Accessing the Sonic and the Social: An Evaluation of Methodological Shifts in the Ethnography of Performance

(MPhil Submission Lent 2012)

3500 Words

In his 2001 article 'Between Process and Product', Nicholas Cook comments on a recent paradigm shift in musicological literature away from the textuality of the score and towards performance. Since the mid-eighties there has been a growing attention to performance within scholarship; the

landscape of literature on performance before this point has been described by Jonathan Dunsby as 'fluid' and 'fragmentary' (Rink: 1996: 253).

Within the study of music, Cook identifies the growth of interest as a response to tensions in the musicological field, namely, Goehr's challenge to the autonomy of the concept of the Western 'musical work' through a delineation of the problems inherent within its ontological status, and the New Musicology's recognition of the importance of discussing music in terms of its social context, but their ineffective attempts to locate it within the score through hermeneutic analysis. The shift can also be seen against the backdrop of the larger 'performative turn' within the humanities and social sciences more generally; the work of Richard Schechner, along with others such as Butler and Goffman establishing 'performance studies' as a discipline in its own right.

Performance studies call for a greater attention to phenomena as a processes, rather than texts or objects, and Cook's article serves as a call to arms in the development of a musicology of performance, for fuller, more detailed explanations of it as both a social and sonic process. Ethnomusicology, which has predominantly devoted itself to the study of other cultures – which have often been remote, previously undocumented, illiterate, or without a system of notation – is a discipline that has constantly been forced to engage with music and culture as a process rather than a text.

However, this is not to say that ethnomusicological scholarship has provided an easily identifiable process-based methodological archetype, which musicologists can now hope to utilize. On the contrary, despite their close engagement with the act of performance itself, previous ethnomusicological scholarship has often taken an analytical approach, utilizing the musical process for the formation of a text through the act of transcription. Transcriptions which too often attempt to totalize the experience of the individual musicians making up the ensemble and abstract 'music' away from the social processes in which it is embedded, creating a new reified text (Cook 1999: 261).

It is not the mere difference between process of music making and the text produced that is the problem. As Dunsby states, the event and its documentation are not the same and never can be (Dunsby 1996: 97); one cannot hope to capture music – a present, performed experience, a 'living art' existing only in time – in verbal discourse (or indeed, notation) because of the unbridgeable epistemological gulf between the two (Rink 1996: 256). The problem, within certain types of scholarly methods including transcription is that they merely translate the performative experience, rather than explaining it.

Therefore, the aim of this essay is to evaluate certain key publications within the ethnomusicological literature, with an emphasis on methodology, acknowledging their contributions but also pointing out the ways in which they could take further steps to achieve a fusion between process and product – not one which transcends the boundaries of language or analysis: such a coalescence is unobtainable – but one that attempts to get closer to the musical event in both its social and sonic dimensions.

As a result of the shift of emphasis, many of these publications broaden the scope of musicological research has been extended to include document pedagogy, rehearsal, performance and the linguistic and gestural communication instrumental playing included within these practices. I shall delineate points whereby further scholarship would be beneficial where relevant.

In her 2001 article 'Towards an Ethnomusicology of the Early Music Movement: Thoughts on Bridging Disciplines and Musical Worlds', Kay Kaufman Shelemay advocates an approach which accounts for the social function of musical performance through ethnographic methods which give access to the study and experience of musical act and sound (2001: 3)

The article takes certain issues, central to the functioning of the Boston Early Music Movement – including distinctions between amateurism and professionalism, specialist performers and ensembles, uses of particular instruments, musical values and performance practices – and works small details into larger themes, situating them in a broad social context. However, although Shelemay paints an extensive and detailed picture of the movement as a whole, her use of ethnographic methods can be seen as falling short of her original aim – to access the experience of musical act and sound. Although she uses interview techniques to gain information about the meaning of the musical act to certain performers, the reflections she documents largely embody general points about musical style, (i.e. a reflection on what it might mean to be musically 'authentic') and do not talk directly about the musical act.

The one exception within the article illuminates musical phenomena which scholarship needs to address: “John was filling in the harmonies, but he was also inventing a third voice a lot of the time... there was some real invention going on in the keyboard playing, which doesn't get talked about much” (2001: 10) This quotation illuminates that clearly, if we are to understand music making in its experiential dimension, we need to extend ethnographic techniques to attempt to get closer to it: to explain the process and not just describe it.

In his seminal publication Thinking in Jazz: The Infinite Art of Improvisation, Paul Berliner undertakes this very task, using an ethnographic approach to explain the act of jazz improvisation in social and sonic terms. Whereas previous literature on jazz had often misrepresented the practice, 'mystifying' the act of improvisation and misrepresenting and marginalizing musicians through critical outsider perspectives which failed to see the music on its own terms (1994: 6), Berliner's ethnographic technique brings him closer to an emic perspective on the process of improvisation. He weaves together his informant's reflections on what they think they do during performance together with his own observations in order to de-mystify the processes Jazz musicians go through in order to develop the ability to improvise, confirming Dunsby's assertion that musicians “do not usually work in some sort of unreflecting trance”; instead they “think hard” (1996: 9). By encouraging reflection on the musician's practical and pedagogical engagements, Berliner elucidates the manner in which players gradually build up a vocabulary of harmonic gestures, which can be utilized in performance with increasing dexterity to create a 'dialogue' with other musicians. Berliner explains the relationship between improvised and pre-composed components of the artists' knowledge as cyclical: the improvised exploration of individual pitch combinations produces new vocabulary patterns which, when memorized, are transformed into pre-composed materials. When the soloist retrieves them in performance, however, they serve as improvisational elements that reintegrate in unique ways in the construction of phrases.

Berliner illustrates examples of these materials though transcriptions, ranging from basic building blocks for fashioning individual parts to extended group performances. Although Berliner provides us with the theoretical framework through which to understand the transcriptions in the main text of the book, there is definitely more scope for a fuller integration of musical text and the performer's reflection on the processes happening. Berliner states that the transcriptions are intended as guides for readers who may wish to immerse themselves in the original recordings (1994: 12). However, although the recordings are noted to be of important pedagogical value to Berliner's informants, a set of transcriptions which document the 'great' jazz standards – Booker Little, Miles Davis, and Charlie Parker amongst others – misses an opportunity to fully explain the repertoire from the perspective of those who perform it. In the latter transcriptions showing improvised group interplay, Berliner uses the picture of improvisation he has built up in the previous chapters in order to discuss the recording. However, although his detailed analysis gives us an insight into the music, it is predominantly descriptive rather than explanatory. Given that Berliner obtained some of the improvisational variants on the traditional repertoire through conversation with his informants, and learned the intricacies of jazz improvisation directly from the musicians themselves, performing and recording with a group he had organized (1994: 5) it is surprising that Berliner did not think it appropriate to record and transcribe various groups in practice, and use the method of the interview to present an explanation of stylistic choices and which tied details to larger theoretical frameworks he outlines: Part 2 of the book.

Berliner's account is outstanding in its extensive scope and the rigor with which it contextualizes the jazz tradition within wider cultural practices, and its seminal insights into jazz improvisation as a process. However, in terms of the objective I outline in my introduction, there is opportunity for development. For a greater synthesis to be reached, a higher degree of specificity is needed – reflections need to be made, pertaining to both social and sonic elements in relation to particular events, which can be displayed through musical notation and backed up by audio recordings, pertaining to Nicholas Cook's observation in Between Process and Product, that a “musicology of performance really demands the integration of sound, word, and image achievable through current hypermedia technology (2001: 29).

A perspective which embraces hypermedia technology, in order to document a successfully integrated account of music as a process, is Amanda Bayley's 2011 article 'Ethnographic Research into Contemporary String Quartet Rehearsal'. Bayley utilizes an audio recording of a rehearsal, concert performances, a filmed performance and photography, alongside the more traditional methods of interviews, questionnaires, observations in order to present a picture of the interactive and collaborative processes which take place between a composer and performers of his work. It documents the progress of Micheal Finnissy's Second String Quartet, from composition, through the rehearsal and performance process with the Kreutzer Quartet, and finally, to reflections on performance (2011: 386).

Although Bayley has broader research concerns, she states her primary objective is to discover more about how professional musicians structure their rehearsal time, and why they approach Finnissy’s piece in a particular way. Taking the audio recording of the rehearsal, Bayley uses a quantitative method to examine how much rehearsal time is spent on particular activities. She uses the 5 main categories taken from Davidson's and Good's (2002) examination of the social and musical co-ordination between members of a student string quartet in rehearsal and performance: social conversation, non-verbal social interaction, musical conversations, non-verbal musical interactions and musical interactions. Due to the predominance of the conversation, she breaks this down further, into more specific areas.

However, the problems inherent in such a method undermine its apparent precision. One issue, which Bayley recognises, is the level of simplification of the event that such a process entails when distinguishing between overlapping categories. For example, one conversation may have two objectives, such as solving a problem relating to technique and notation or to sound quality and technique. Furthermore, talking and playing often merge in rehearsal: if an instrument is utilized to produce sound within the conversation about another point, then should it be reclassified as musicking? Bayley points to an inherent methodological weakness when she admits that where musical and/or verbal interactions overlap or collide, the categorisation has been made according to what was most audible (2011: 396).

Most importantly, in terms of the research objectives, is that this type of analysis fails to explain music as a process. Bayley notes some of these quantitative analyses also fail to show the swift transitions between humour or chit-chat and playing; which points were made by whom, who was being directive, and interplay between musicians changed in the course of the rehearsal. As Bayley herself states: a graphic representation of data is a useful way of gaining a sense of the proportion of various elements that make up the rehearsal but has limited value because it fails to show how the rehearsal progressed (2011: 398) Moreover, although it may be useful to show that more time was spent doing certain activities, this is not a direct reflection of their importance.

However, extremely illuminating insights into the rehearsal process were made by qualitative analysis:

The first issue regards the function of metaphor in communicating the composer's sonic preferences to the performers: At the beginning of the rehearsal Finnissy chose metaphors such as ‘sort of saltier’, ‘frothier’ and ‘like spiders crawling’ to help describe the nature of the sound he wanted. In a later interview, he explained that such metaphors were not fixed, but that they emerged in relation to the sound that the musicians were already making. Bayley places this in a larger theoretical framework by pointing to Feld’s observation that metaphors categorize musical experiences in relation to similar or dissimilar experiences, to place an item or event in meaningful social space through ongoing interpretive moves. These moves do not fix or freeze a single meaning; meaning is emergent and changeable in relation to various combinations of moves made by specifically situated speakers (2011: 403).

However, although this theoretical framework gives insight, it does not provide us with an insider perspective, which may help explain the process of 'emergent meanings' in more specific terms. Although her research includes scripts of dialogue in the rehearsal process, and notes from a conversation with Finnissy, the perspectives of the performers are not interwoven into the main fabric of the article, but consigned to a detached section at the end. The documentation gained (a questionnaire, completed a month after the filmed performance) could not have been worked into a broader explanation, since the four players give differing and contradictory responses. In answer to the question ‘Are there important elements of the composition that Michael clarified in rehearsal which were not evident from the notation or other markings in the score? Please give details’, there was no consistent answer between players: two replied yes; two replied no. However, the specific responses conveyed different interpretations of similar themes, showing that given a more dialogic methodology, progress towards an insider's account of the process could have been attained. Heyde and Trandafilovski differed on whether they had understood Finnissy's metaphors to describe sound, or character and expression, and Sheppard Skærved’s negative response was ‘all of the important details are apparent; all that Michael did was to show that they were in front of us'. These comments suggest that there is a deeper discussion here to be had on the relationship between the score, sound, language and communication (2011: 406).

Another illuminating insight is provided through a discussion Bayley documents on coordination and movement: Finnissy’s compositional is (for lack of a better term) semi-indeterminate – a degree of freedom is composed into the parts for the explicit function of varying vertical alignment on each iteration as well as transitions between different sections of the piece. Towards the end of the rehearsal, Finnissy commented that he felt that the players had become too coordinated with the viola and cello parts, and that it was not producing the right effect. Finnissy wanted them to create “a feeling of initially not really being within reach, as if an unattainable plateau that they’re on and you’re desperate to reach it.” Once the players knew how the parts worked together, they had to find a way of ‘unlearning’ that knowledge, resisting the urge for highly co-ordinated playing to attain a controlled ‘un-coordination’, a style of performance determined by the composer’s intention for the character of the piece.

Bayley claims she was aware of the implications of the loss of visual information, but felt it important to only use audio in order not to impede or affect the rehearsal process. However, the lack of data on movement and gesture prevents her from working towards a theory of the nonverbal methods of communication, which would elucidate the way in which this co-ordination and un-coordination might take place.

Visual information is also of crucial importance to the discussion of Finnissy's metaphors, partly because the taped concert performance reveals that Finnissy consistently uses gestures as he talks to accentuate and refine his meaning, but also since the production of sound is dependent on the process of movement and thoroughly aggregated with the notions of 'expression' and 'character'. In fact, as I stated above, through the rehearsal process, Heyde took Finnissy's comments to pertain predominantly to expression and character rather than sound. Whilst much work has been written on the distinctions between the terms in abstract philosophical terms, a discussion of what they have meant in pragmatic terms, as 'discourse frames' for instrumentalists negotiating a rehearsal has not been fully documented.

Hence, although Bailey uses hypermedia documentation which Cook suggests can help us bridge the gap between process and product, she does not go far enough in seeking to relate the individual forms of collected data (the taped rehearsal, the filmed concert performance, the interview and the questionnaire) to one another. However, to rectify this I am not suggesting that Bailey should merely take her analytical approach further in positing interrelations – such an approach may induce dangerous level of abstract theorizing. I am positing we take an approach that places informants nearer to the center of the research, and encourages a dialogue through a method called video playback, predominantly used within music psychology.

In their forthcoming article “Exploring creativity in musical performance through lesson observation with video-recall interviews”, James, Wise and Rink (from hereon in referred to as James) utilize video analysis, to document specific moments of 'creativity' within the pedagogical engagement between teacher and student. Lessons are filmed and the footage is used as a memory prompt and participants are invited to talk in depth about their experiences. James contends this has the potential both to allow insights into their experiences that could not be gained from viewing the footage alone, and to facilitate participants’ conscious access to processes that they may not often think about or articulate, thereby “building an effective bridge between research and practice” (forthcoming: 2).¹

The video-recall method is not without its problems. Firstly, as Bayley feared in her research, there is a chance that the presence of a camera will cause participants to act in a manner slightly different they would have done otherwise, however, this can be reduced by getting used to being on film. Secondly, although the use of video lessens participant's likelihood of forgetting details, misremembering, or interpreting things differently than reflection without video data might induce, seeing the lesson from a different angle and after a period of time, however short, introduces an inevitable element of interpretation in hindsight, and it is therefore possible participants can confuse revelations they have through reflection with revelations they had at the time (forthcoming: 26). However, a reflexive manner which does not make participants feel that they have to offer explanations to fit analytical categories demanded by the researcher and an acute scholarly look at the data which may identify erroneous comments, such problems can be minimized.

James's methodology gave the participants control over the research process, initially asking participants to select excerpts of tape they felt were important to the creative process. The advantage of this method is that it that it creates a directed but flexible structure which can cater for new questions and issues that emerge through the research process – the importance of which is demonstrated to be important by Bayley's research, and the unexpected impetus on metaphor and gesture.

Therefore, I propose that in future ethnographic research, the video-recall method should be utilized if relevant to create a bridge between product and process through discourse. Traditional ethnographic fieldwork methods such as the interview and the questionnaire will remain highly important for the initial observation issues which may become central to research and for collecting data to provide a cultural context for the research. However, a more detailed focus on the experience of music should use video recall both with musicians individually - to enable them to express their insights to the researcher away from the social pressures of the ensemble – and in a group context to enable participants to work towards a mutual understanding of the terminology used, and to avoid the incompatible conceptions of terminology found in Bailey's questionnaire approach, which prevents the construction of a more extensive conceptual framework. Results from individual interviews and group interviews should be compared and contrasted, with the possibility of re-interview either in a group or on an individual basis as a control method to ensure that terminology is being used consistently, and that group politics are not prohibiting reflection.

It will be necessary for researchers to undertake preparatory work in order to define research questions about the exact object of their study, and to refine the full methodological approach accordingly, yet they should be prepared for other research questions to emerge and aware that changing procedures to cater for these may produce more illuminating research. Research can perhaps best be presented in an essay format, with whichever supporting documentation is appropriate - scores, lead sheets, rehearsal charts, etc. - but access to full documentation of the recorded performances (or other) should be presented alongside to allow readers to contextualise academic observations. The written documentation should make specific references to the points in the video that are being discussed, either expressed in time, or with the possibility of larger-scale synthesis through computer programming. Imperative in research conducted with a significant focus on sound is that the quality of audiovisual data is as high as is possible, to ensure that reflections on sound quality are not misguided.

In conclusion, performance itself and its documentation may always be separated by Dunsby’s ‘epistemological gulf’, and performance practice may inevitably continue to be conditioned to a varying degree by a number of binaries, including performer and audience, creator and reactor, and subject and analyst. Yet the best way for scholarship to proceed is through an understanding of these differences not as dichotomies, but as positions of proximity and distance. This notion is made more lucid by Dunsby's assertion, that in performance there are no “pure doers” (1996: 49); language is constantly present as an inner monologue throughout our experience of music as both listeners and performers. Indeed, as Karol Berger states, “The hermeneutic element cannot be wholly banished from the arena of performance; there is no such thing as pure experience, uncontaminated by interpretation” (Berger 2005: 501) Therefore, the video-recall method is not only an attempt at 'translating' their sensual actions and feelings into words, (although undoubtedly this might form part the method); it is a report or 'second reflection' on thoughts, words, that they experienced at the same time as sensation and action.

In sum: by understanding music as a process, rather than as a product, and by taking an ethnographic approach which places musicians' emic perspectives at the centre of research in the aforementioned ways, we may gain a more complete understanding of music in its sonic and social terms.

Words: 3815

Bibliography:

Bayley, Amanda, 'Ethnographic Research into Contemporary String Quartet Rehearsal', Ethnomusicology Forum, Vol. 20 No. 3, (2011) pp. 385-411

Berger, Karol, Musicology According to Don Giovanni, or: Should We Get Drastic?

The Journal of Musicology, Vol. 22, No. 3 (Summer 2005), pp. 490-501

Berliner, Paul, Thinking in Jazz: The Infinite Art of Improvisation (Chicago: 1994)

Cook, Nicholas,' Analysing Performance and Performing Analysis' Rethinking Music, Cook and Evereist eds., (Oxford: 1999)

Cook, Nicholas, 'Between Process and Product', in Music Theory Online, Vol. 7, No. 2, (April 2001)

Davidson, Jane W. and Good's James M. 'Social and Musical Co-Ordination between Members of a String Quartet: An Exploratory Study', Psychology of Music, Vol. 30, (2002), pp.186-201

Dunsby, Jonathan, Performing Music: Shared Concerns, (Clarendon Press: 1996)

James, M., Wise, K., & Rink, J. 'Exploring creativity in musical performance through lesson observation with video-recall interviews', in Scientia Paedagogica Experimentalis, (forthcoming)

Rink, John, Review of Jonathan Dunsby, Performing Music: Shared Concerns, in Music & Letters, Vol. 77 No. 2, (1996), pp. 253–7

Shelemay Kauffman, Kay, 'Towards and Ethnomusicology of the Early Music Movement: Thoughts on Bridging Disciplines and Musical Worlds', in Ethnomusicology, Vol. 45, No. 1 (Winter 2001), pp. 1-2

1See also: (Davidson & Good: 2002)