Course Schedule
All readings and assignments must be done BEFORE the class for which they are listed. CR=Course Reader. Consult the relevant section of the SEM Manual each week in addition to the listed readings. We shall also add in training sessions with the ethno lab TA, to learn the photography, sound recording, and video equipment.
WEEK 1, 2 APRIL: Introduction/when a field project becomes a documentary film
Introduction to the course
Guest presentation and discussion with Ben Harbert, whose original project for this class two years ago ended up becoming a documentary film and the basis for his Ph.D. dissertation.
WEEK 2, 9 APRIL: Introduction to fieldwork and photography
Technical subject: photography
Guest speaker on fieldwork: Mike Seeger, Ethnomusicology Regents Lecturer 2008
Guest speaker on photography: TBA
Reading: CR#1 on fieldwork, interviewing, and record-keeping
Assignments
1. Submit a detailed plan for your fieldwork project, including how you have contacted or will contact informants, a time-line, budget, and use of equipment.
2. Present me with your certificates to show you are certified on human subjects. Go to http://www.training.ucla.edu/ucla/ and follow the directions for Social Behavioral Research certification. You should allow four or five hours to complete this process. Please email me if you have questions or problems with this.
WEEK 3, 16 APRIL: Sound recording
Technical subject: sound recording
Guest speaker: Nick Bergh, professional sound engineer, experienced field recordist, and MA in Ethnomusicology from UCLA.
Reading: Review of solid state digital recorders for fieldwork use by Vienna Phonogrammarchiv (by e-mail attachment).
WEEK 4, 23 APRIL: Video/archiving
Technical subject: video
Guest speaker: Ben Harbert
Reading: CR#2 on archiving, also Zemp, Hugo. 1988. “Filming Music and Looking at Music Films.” Ethnomusicology 32(3):393-427.
http://www.jstor.org/view/00141836/ap030074/03a00050/0
Feld, Steven. 1976. “Ethnomusicology and Visual Communication.” Ethnomusicology 20(2):293-325. http://www.jstor.org/view/00141836/ap030037/03a00060/0 and
Feld, Steven, and Carroll Williams. 1975. “Toward a Researchable Film Language.” Studies in the Anthropology of Visual Communication 2(1):25-32.
http://www.anthrosource.net/doi/abs/10.1525/var.1975.2.1.25
Field visit: to Ethnomusicology Archive
WEEK 5, 30 APRIL: Ethics and legal issues
Reading: CR#3 and CR#4 on legal issues; class handout; also articles by Sherylle Mills, Anthony Seeger, and Hugo Zemp in the 1996 issue of Yearbook for Traditional Music (all available on JSTOR)
Assignment (due in class): Summarize the legal situations described and discussed in the articles by Mills, Seeger, and Zemp on law-related issues. How will this affect what you yourself do in the field?
Also: prepare brief oral reports to be given in class on how your fieldwork projects are developing; and we will listen to the sound recording exercise in class.
WEEK 6, 7 MAY: Fieldwork in the community/restudies
Reading:
--CR#5 (Beaudry)
--CR#6 (Shelemay)
--CR #7 (Stillman)
Video showing: Bake Restudy
WEEK 7, 14 MAY: Writing ethnographies/special issues
Reading:
--CR#8 (on gender in the field)
--CR#9 (on writing ethnographies)
--CR#10 (on the particular problems of documenting ritual)
WEEK 8, 21 MAY: Ethnomusicological fieldwork and its critics
Reading:
--CR#11 (Petrovic), CR#12 (Body),
--In addition, one person should look at Nketia's entry on African musical ethnography in the Africa volume of the Garland Encyclopedia of World Music (1998) and report back
Assignment (due in class): 3- to 4-page critique of a major music ethnography of your choice; please run your choice past me first. See pp.4-5 of the syllabus for instructions.
WEEK 9, 28 MAY: Virtual ethnography, grant writing, and general wrap-up
Guest speaker: TBA
Reading: I shall distribute a successful grant application in class for discussion.
WEEK 10, 4 JUNE: First batch of oral presentations
EXAM WEEK, MONDAY 11 JUNE, 8-11AM: Second batch of oral presentations