The Myers reading isn't much of an opinion or argumentative reading but more so a presentation and listing of many ethnomusicologists and their studies/collections within different musics in various countries and regions. Myers does mention the ideologies of some of the ethnomusicologists and their approach to studying different musics, all of which are prior to 1945. Some of these pose some interesting questions and arguable theories.
Myer's writes about many ethnomusicologists who did fieldwork in their area of study and in order to preserve the music they used wax cylinder recordings. Myers mentions that wax cylinders were used due to their portability and convenience. I found it interesting that Myers states that they continued to be used even into the 1950's when more advanced technology such as the wire recorder became available. I then started to think of some questions as to why that may be. I came to the idea that it's possible the wire recorder was not as portable, harder to use, and possibly not as affordable (I'm speculating, I have no idea of the cost of either). The continued use of more wax cylinders vs. the newly available technology could bring to question the preservation of the music. The use of recording music was justified as a means of preservation and so I questioned the choice of recording technique and it's ability to last. I also questioned the quality of recording and which would contribute to a better quality of recording.
Another important concept that Myers touches on when discussing Cecil Sharp was the question of authenticity. Sharp a collector of English folksong and dance believed that "authentic" traditions were dying out. To preserve authenticity they obtained most of their material from singers age 60 or over. I found this interesting in saying that age may have a relationship with the material they have collected and it being "authentic". I can see that a theory to this may be that the older singers have more knowledge and have been exposed to or have more experience with "authentic" (I kind of assume he means original when say authentic), however this relationship and reasoning could be argued as being inaccurate.
Many collectors not only recorded the music but also transcribed it as well. Myers mentions John Comfort Fillmore a piano teacher who prepared transcriptions of Alice Fletcher's collections who collected works of Omaha Indian music, mostly song. The tradition of the Omaha Indians and song was that of an oral tradition, and like many who collected works from an oral tradition transcribed the music to paper by ear or fter recording it. It can be argued that although this was done to preserve the music it in a sense takes away from the tradition and "performance". After transcribing and then learning the music from paper goes against an important factor within that tradition, it's oral transmission an important teaching and learning process as well as communication within its community. Fillmore's view on the Omaha Indians was mentioned as having "pitch 'discrepancies' because the Indians had an inferior sense of pitch and discrimination". He then went on to try and reduce the songs to scales such as pentatonic scales and minor scales, ultimately finding he could not.
I feel that this view is bit ignorant and naive (mind you it was the late 1800's) due to the fact that, yes although it could be justified that his comparison of their song to that of more Western musical theory was to possibly obtain a clearer view (for Westerners) of their musical system, it in a way demeans it's tradition. I interpret his efforts, also due to his mentioning of their inferior senses, that he in a way has the view of "lower" and "higher" music and has thus tried to put the two against each other displaying a kind of power complex. He goes on to mention that they have poor pitch discrimination, however I think it should be taken into consideration that maybe the Omaha Indian music simply does not contain all the pitches Fillmore has tried apply/find in their song. It's possible that some pitches are not used or common within their music and so their "poor" pitch discrimination could be due to the fact their musical structure is not one that can be compared to his Western music example and some pitches from Western scales are new to the Omaha Indian tradition of song.
Myers article itself is pretty dry and listing apart from mentioning a few individuals and their theories, I don't feel there is an overall opinion or argument of Myers expressed throughout the piece. These are a few things I personally picked out of Myers work.
I thought the section of the Myers reading about the Omaha Indians & Fillmore's transcriptions (as mentioned above by Ashley) is oddly similar to the 'universals' described by Nettl in Ch.4 (Study of Ethnomusicology) in that these both seek to standardize a system of measurement or gauge for an enormous variety of music that may not fall neatly into so few categories. The question of 'authenticity' also seems pretty sketchy. Myers refers to the use of age to determine what is 'authentic' but that was not the only way 'authenticity' was determined (i.e. 'authentic blues' as Delta Blues versus other sub-genres/styles of blues). Pre-1945 Ethnomusicology seems to have had a large focus on collection/recording processes while the post-1945 focuses more on the analysis/comparison of these recordings. Anyways, I too found this reading dry...a lot of names & birth/death dates...and informative of course!
ReplyDeleteI find it very interesting as to why ethnomusicologists chose to use wax cylinder recordings as their medium when new, innovative, and more effective technologies existed. To me it is illogical to use technology that was introduced in the late 19th century and is still in use halfway through the next century. Surely there must have been some archivists aware of the deterioration of the wax cylinders and thus leading to a drop in recording and playback quality. I believe that though transportation must have been easier, the foresight or lack thereof for that matter, of expanding and keeping up-to-date with modern technologies is an important factor to keep in mind for the sake of research, and preserving such musics.
ReplyDeletePerhaps they had an argument as to why the kept using the cylinders. Perhaps they use of wax cylinder recordings can give a perception of age and authenticity in terms of recording quality. I'm sure that there are people out there who have heard old recordings be it on wax cylinder or some other medium with white noise in the background and the sound is not very sharp or clear but rather fuzzy and have thought "this must be a recording from a long time ago" (long time ago meaning early 20th century or before). I have thought this before when I have heard music from these type of recordings. My reasoning is that it can only sound this good (or bad) because of the technological limitations at the time. Perhaps the use of old technologies in more modern times instills within the listener a feeling of authenticity.
I'm confused as to why wax cylinders would have been in continued use so long after better recording technologies were available, but the most likely sounding theory that has been presented her I would guess would be the cost and portability of the equipment. I agree with Eunah in the idea of authenticity being a wobbly one. Defining what is authentic and what isn't, I think, will always be something of a trap, because it will always include personal opinion and therefore what might authentic to one individual might not be to another, which makes the idea of a standardized authenticity some what ludicrous.
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