Concerns

After my defense I circulated copies of my thesis to the ensembles and individuals I discussed. One of the biggest surprises I had was the response from one musician (I'm going to keep the person anonymous). The interlocutor in question took issue with a lot of what I said in the thesis, in particular the concept that difference equals opposition when applied to one of the ensembles in the thesis. Ultimately I decided to disagree about a collection of theoretical points while conceding others. We exchanged emails and I made several changes to the document based in the person's concerns.

But the whole experience has my thinking. Did I really do a good job with this project? How ethnographic is my thesis, after all? In my intro chapter, I made the following statement:

Cultural theorist John Van Maanen has argued that ethnography posits “questions at the margins of two cultures [those of the ethnographer and the people he or she studies]” (1988, p. 4). Van Maanen’s observation brings to light the constructedness of ethnography in general, and illustrates the subjectivity of my own research. Whenever possible, I have endeavored to share with my interlocutors my interpretations of the activities I have observed. Ultimately, the constructs, frames, and language I employ describe my own position as much as those of my informants (Kisliuk, 1997).

Reflecting on this I have realized the following potential polemic. My culture, academia, required a finished document by a certain date. The document had to meet certain requirement of form and content. I only had a limited amount of time to conduct fieldwork. In my desire and effort to meet these requirements, I have likely shortchanged certain aspects of new music culture that interlocutors would find deeply significant and meaningful. And I still have not elaborated on a sound structure/social structure framework for new music. The closest I came was in a post about tenets of new music that never made it into the final document.

I'm not saying that the thesis sucks, or that it has nothing to offer. I am confident in myself, my panel of advisers, and the informants who complemented my efforts. But I want to keep working on this. There's so much more to do, and I need more fieldwork, more conversations. I need to actually create relationships with the people I study. I want to better understand and analyze their concerns and desires. I want to create a significant contribution to academic literature that frames new music in humanizing terms. One that includes the complexities, contradictions, and marvels of the people who create and participate in new music.

I can't rely on blogs so much this time. This time I need much more face to face interaction whenever and wherever possible. And I need different tools, new theoretical frames that address metaphor, gender, and class.

I've got four years at the University of Western Ontario. I hope it's enough to produce some really good work. After that, I need to get a job where, hopefully, I can keep working, keep expanding and contracting my perspective.