Toward a Mediation of Field Methods and Field Experience in Ethnomusicology

Abstract

Abstract Fieldwork is so central to contemporary ethnomusicology that I would suppose nearly every graduate program devoted to training ethnomusicologists has a course on it, probably with a title containing the phrase “fieldwork methods.” The three nouns in these courses’ titles (method, field, and work) speak volumes about our collective understanding of theory and method in ethnomusicology, and thus provide the place where I would like to begin this reflection on fieldwork. I hope to show the limits of the usefulness of this phrase and the possibilities for an alternative view of where the field is and what happens in the field, a view that balances method and working with experience and playing. To do so, I move narratively between theoretical or philosophical reflection and some of my own fieldwork experiences, just as I do in practice.

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