Nearly Done

Well, I have nearly finished the work on my Master's thesis. It's been a long long road, and I wanted to make a post about a few final findings. I've included a chapter outline below.

All in all, my research on three new music groups and the culture in which they perform has been pretty fascinating. In particular, I have been surprised at the extent to which I got in my own way, an experience predicted in James Spradley's writings on ethnographic method. Most of all, I struggled with understanding the why of new music. Why perform this music? Why go into debt with little hope of earning a sizable income? Why settle for a life of poverty in exchange for the opportunity to make music?

I don't have complete answers to those questions, but I have some ideas. I remember Courteny Orlando telling me that Alarm Will Sound comprised some of her most favorite experiences. I remember Dave Farell describing his experiences with performers with fondness, and Jeremy Sment's story of working with eighth blackbird. I also remeber the rehearsals of the groups. Rehearsals strike me as particularly rich social events. At times, they resembled parties and at times the resembled surgeries. I'll have to spend more time with this topic in my future fieldwork.

I'll plan to begin circulating copies of the thesis to the ensembles themselves. It'll be interesting to see what people think.

Chapter outline (including subsections of interest):

Chapter 1 An Ethnography of New Music

Chapter 2 A Brief History of New Music Practice
Serialism and the Institutionalization of Art Music
Experimentalism, Indeterminacy, and Other Camps
Minimalism, Postmodernism, and Accepting Popular Music

Chapter 3 (Dis)Ordered Bodies: Performance, Difference, and Time
Breaking the Mold: the Postmodern Performances of Alarm Will Sound and
eighth blackbird
Yarn/Wire in the Concert Hall

Chapter 4 It’s not about the money: Patronage and Socioeconomic Structure
Symbolic Capital
“Real” Capital

Chapter 5 Reflections and Conclusions