{"id":23,"date":"2018-03-18T22:31:46","date_gmt":"2018-03-18T22:31:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/abrew1\/?p=23"},"modified":"2018-05-17T12:26:59","modified_gmt":"2018-05-17T11:26:59","slug":"recap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/abrew1\/2018\/03\/18\/recap\/","title":{"rendered":"So&#8230; What happened?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>THE INTRO<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The first thing I want to do is thank all of the participants for taking part in this process, particularly those whose interviews were used in multiple weeks. And secondly I want to say\u2026 What an interesting result this has given me. This is so different to anything that I could have imagined in every way possible but I am so glad of that.<\/p>\n<p>This experiment began as a reaction to Thomas Burkhalter\u2019s <em>Seismographic<\/em> <em>Sounds: Visions of a New World<\/em><em>\u00a0<\/em>which I found to be an incredibly interesting read. I really enjoyed reading articles by \u2018the two hundred and fifty scholars, journalists, bloggers and musicians\u2026 from forty-six\u2026 countries present and discuss artistic expressions\u2019 (p. 10), yet I couldn\u2019t help but notice how influenced they were from what they already knew. To me, this was the one great flaw. By having only musically educated speaking about World Music that they had studied and watched in great detail, what were we really learning? What were we really achieving? We were doing nothing apart from cementing their already in depth knowledge. And yes &#8211; the aim of the book was certainly achieved. But that was not the aim of the blog. I wanted to both inform people of and gauge their reactions to popular global music which they knew nothing about. I wanted to change their outlooks&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>And boy, did I change that.<br \/>\n<!--nextpage--><br \/>\n<strong>THE FLAWS<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>There were a few problems along the way\u2026 In fact, there were a lot of problems along the way.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8216;Normal&#8217; people aren\u2019t musicologists or ethnomusicologists, and they don\u2019t claim to be. But this lack of knowledge left a lot of their responses to chance, I didn\u2019t know what they were going to speak about.<\/li>\n<li>The experiment really drifted from the original intention (admittedly the end result was interesting and thought-provoking), but it wasn\u2019t nearly as in-depth or academic as <em>Seismographic Sounds<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>The people I was able to interview was limited. It had to people I had access to, and that really depleted the numbers of people I could use. Because of that, many of the opinions given were those of young, university students.<\/li>\n<li>Because they aren\u2019t musically trained, the reactions ran the risk of being basic, flawed and even at a push insulting. And some of them were.<\/li>\n<li>The very fact that I chose to create a blog meant I was unable to receate the tone and layout in <em>Seismographic Sounds. <\/em>Although I tried, it was rather difficult to include as many pictures or font sizes or uneven placing on the page.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>But perhaps the biggest flaw was one I brought upon myself:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The way I chose to interview them. The process began by videoing each participant but as I began to edit these videos I realised I am neither a videographer nor an editor. The videos just looked bad. Then I began to simply ask the participants questions and transcribe their answers, but they all shared my writing style. So finally, I decided to let the interviewees write down their thoughts and simply used this instead (this made it more raw and real \u2013 you can really see the difference in their writing styles and outlooks)<\/li>\n<li>I should have been more driven in my interview questions. The focus of the blog was to recreate <em>Seismographic Sounds WAR <\/em>section, but to an uneducated reader, this would not be obvious. I should have asked further questions about this topic<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>THE POSITIVES<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>No, the blog did not turn out the way that I wanted it to\u2026 But there were so many positives to be found along the way.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>People were so much more open to talk than I had assumed they would be.<\/li>\n<li>People were so much more knowledgeable than I had assumed they would be.<\/li>\n<li>People were so much more insightful than I had assumed they would be.<\/li>\n<li>People were so much more accepting than I had assumed they would be.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>People are so informed by their own lives that they were able to apply it to the music that they were listening to. It was so humbling to see non-musicians discuss the way in which society views global music.<br \/>\n<!--nextpage--><br \/>\n<strong>THE REFLECTION<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Reflecting on these weeks will be incredibly difficult because of the so many responses which I gained from the participants. Yes, this began as a reaction to Burkhalter\u2019s <em>Seismographic Sounds <\/em>and specifically the section on <em>WAR <\/em>but it became so much more than that.<\/p>\n<p>It became a discussion. A discussion about race, about acceptance, about politics, about history. A discussion driven by music.<\/p>\n<p>And that was something incredible to see.<\/p>\n<p>Burkhalters <em>Seismographic Sounds <\/em>uses this same idea, he sections the book into <em>WAR <\/em>and <em>MONEY <\/em>and <em>GREED<\/em> and all of the reactions are focussed upon these topics, but much of what is said is more scholarly and constructed\u2026 This was much more open and raw. The scholars, musicians and writers were given time to create a piece of writing focussing on a song, the participants in this experiment were not granted the same courtesy. All of the reactions are as they hear the music for the first time as well as directly after they have been given further information. I chose to do this, as opposed to giving them time to compose a piece of writing, because I felt as though reactions the reactions would be much more natural than written and edited pieces. It helped that it was in blog form, as there was less focus placed upon the academic writing and more upon the responses. Considering they began interviewing in 2013 and the book wasn\u2019t published until 2015, they were given plenty of time to be \u2018methodological and theoretical\u2019 in their approach (p. 11).<\/p>\n<p>I think the comment that will perhaps stick with me for the longest is \u2018you\u2019ve got to try if you want to find music from elsewhere\u2026 And I\u2019ve never bothered\u2019 which Helen Brew made all the way back in week one. And it\u2019s true. The diet of English and American music doesn\u2019t allow scope for Global musicians to make a name for themselves in the Anglo-Americanised world which we are living in. But, do they want to be? Everyone assumes that the pinnacle of success is to break into our Western music scene\u2026 But is it really? The songs I chose for the participants to listen to were specifically based on <em>WAR<\/em>, firstly because it was the section that drew me in during <em>Seismographic Sounds<\/em>, but secondly because I thought it might create a discussion. And it did. I think one element which perhaps became the main focus for a lot of the participants, which wasn&#8217;t so much focused upon in\u00a0<em>Seismographic Sounds\u00a0<\/em>was the lack of diversity there is in the music we listen to in England. There were rare occurrences where interviewees had heard of the artist or song I showed them but more often than not, they were completely clueless as to the artist, country and genre of the music.\u00a0<em>Seismographic Sounds<\/em>, on the other hand, relies upon the knowledge of the interviewees to make commentary upon the music, this almost did the exact opposite. It affected all of the participants in many different ways, with some being angry at the media whilst others became angry at themselves. The overwhelming response though, was that we need to try harder to get to know more music. We are so harpooned in our small knowledge and trapped within the genres we know we like, that we are unable to see beyond this. I think a lot of the participants realised this and a lot of them decided that it was time to broaden their horizons.<\/p>\n<p>It surprised me how many of the responses commented on politics\u2026 People know a lot more about politics than you might think. The theme of war, although difficult to discuss always (due to the language barriers), was very prominent in a lot of the weeks &#8211; but I was surprised by how much of the conversation was lead by politics. Much of what is spoken about in\u00a0<em>Seismographic Sounds\u00a0<\/em>is the same &#8211; often discussing the extent to which the government are to blame for the wars in said countries &#8211; but the profound nature of discussions which came out of simply listening to a piece of music often left the participants in a state of shock. some participants weren&#8217;t necessarily interested in the political statements which were being made and were simply focused on the music, but the vast majority were the exact opposite. Many of them were enticed by the political message, which perhaps indicates that meaning has a lot to do with whether we are interested in a song or not.\u00a0<em>Seismographic Sounds\u00a0<\/em>is unable to make this comment because the participants are all already interested in the kinds of music that are being played to them, meaning that naturally their sole focus is the message behind the song. For this reason, it was interesting to combine both of these elements and gauge the opinions of people who knew very little.<\/p>\n<p><strong>So\u2026 Did the recreation fail?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>To emulate <em>Seismographic Sounds <\/em>was always going to be difficult and I gave it a good go.<\/p>\n<p>But yes, I think it did fail. It created something completely different from <em>Seismographic Sounds<\/em>, it was its own entity completely. Instead it was a politically driven commentary upon the inability for Westerners to accept anything outside of their societies own expectations.<\/p>\n<p>It emulated the findings of writers such as Jace Clayton, Keith Howard and Thomas Turino (to name a few) with their findings on Global Pop music in the 21<sup>st<\/sup> century. And I don\u2019t think this is necessarily a bad thing.<\/p>\n<p>As with many pieces of music, this blog began as one thing and became another. It was inspired by but not an exact copy of a book believing that \u2018when passion, talent and energy of artists, scholars and journalists come together\u2026 the world become[s] richer, more diverse, and at times more challenging\u2019 (p. 13). I believe to narrow this down to artists, scholars and journalists excludes the input of the everyday consumer, the one who really\u2026 Music is made for.<br \/>\n<!--nextpage--><br \/>\n<strong>WHO INSPIRED ME<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Read more from the people who inspired this blog:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.soas.ac.uk\/staff\/staff31135.php\">Keith Howard<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/music.illinois.edu\/faculty\/thomas-turino\">Thomas Turino<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.afam.northwestern.edu\/people\/faculty\/nitasha-tamar-sharma.html\">Nitasha Sharma<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/tonymitchell.co.uk\/\">Tony Mitchell<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/norient.com\/aboutus\/team\/thomas-burkhalter\/\">Thomas Burkhalter<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>THE INTRO The first thing I want to do is thank all of the participants for taking part in this process, particularly those whose interviews were used in multiple weeks. And secondly I want to say\u2026 What an interesting result this has given me. This is so different to anything that I could have imagined &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/abrew1\/2018\/03\/18\/recap\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;So&#8230; What happened?&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7276,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/abrew1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/abrew1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/abrew1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/abrew1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7276"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/abrew1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/abrew1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":179,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/abrew1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23\/revisions\/179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/abrew1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/abrew1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/abrew1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}