Critical Review #1

Critical Review

Jeff Titon Reading, Chapter 2

 

In Jeff Titon’s chapter, “Knowing Fieldwork,” it is interesting to consider how the processes of understanding and explanation both alter and transform how we view, analyze, and listen to, music.  According to Titon, “understanding” is “directed towards people” and allows for interpretation. (27) “Explanation,” on the other hand, is purely analysis-based and provides ethnomusicologists with information that “enables prediction and control.” (27) In pairing these two modes of musical analysis with Titon’s example of interviewing Lazy Bill Lucas, I find it interesting to note which mode best fits his interview; that of explanation or understanding?

Titon shows up to the interview with a set list of questions for Lucas. This is where his explanatory tendency is made evident. However, Lucas drifts into a stream of consciousness that takes Titon through his musical career. Here is where the understanding mode of fieldwork comes into play. Rather than allow his pre-determined questions to guide the interview, Titon allows Lucas’ seemingly tangential reverie to become the source of his fieldwork. Titon realizes that story, rather than dictated facts, will drive his fieldwork and give him a greater knowledge, and yes, understanding, of jazz music. 

Titon’s interview (and lack of “formalized” interview) sets in place just how greatly the modes of fieldwork and research are shifting and advancing. If anything, Titon’s improvisatory form of fieldwork mirrors the improvisation that occurs in actual musical performance.  Just as some of the most interesting music is produced when musicians improvise within the confinements of notes on a page, Titon’s interview proves that this, too, is true when conducting fieldwork. Furthermore, Titon’s experience was so interesting and engaging because he did not just list cold, hard facts through specific questions, but rather, allowed Lucas to go where he naturally felt his story should. As a result, Titon’s fieldwork brought me closer to jazz music and helped me understand it in a more experience-based manor.