What Does Ethnomusicology Mean When They Say

Ethnography tells about a culture and the members that comprise this culture. A definition is the scientific description of the customs and individual people of a culture. The process of doing this assignment allowed me to explore another aspect of a cultural group. I was able to learn extensively about interactions between individuals and how see them as a culture. The group that comprises my ethnography is a cultural group very common to Utah. The culture I focused on was the LDS culture, to be more specific I studied a sub-culture of this group. My subculture was a group of 12 year old adolescents that are a Sunday school class in this culture.

Answer: Ethnographic research is different from other social science approaches to research because it goes more in depth. With an ethnographic research you are required to eat, sleep, and breath what is being studied. In order to get a better understanding you will need to incorporate such living (as that of the culture being studied) into your life. It’s more of a research to gain the knowledge of a current situation as oppose to something that has happened in the past. For example Sterk was researching prostitution. She followed the lives of many

Music defines our culture. As Americans, we listen to music while we drive our cars, are at work, doing housework, studying, etc. We have songs for special occasions: Christmas, Hanukah, birthdays, weddings, parties, etc. We have taken songs from the various cultures that make us diverse: Arabic, German, Mexican, Native American, etc. We have many genres: country, hip-hop, rap, pop, blues, jazz, rock, heavy metal, etc. And although we may think of music as simple and easy, looking at all this makes one realize how diverse and complex our music truly is. Two things that contribute to this diversity are theme and symbolism.

6. Is language a reliable demarcation of musical style in Europe? Why or why not?

My grandfather was put in a unique position as a music teacher. Music according to him is a "universal language." Each generation and culture embraces music in reaction (and in

James P. Spradley (1979) described the insider approach to understanding culture as "a quiet revolution" among the social sciences (p. iii). Cultural anthropologists, however, have long emphasized the importance of the ethnographic method, an approach to understanding a different culture through participation, observation, the use of key informants, and interviews. Cultural anthropologists have employed the ethnographic method in an attempt to surmount several formidable cultural questions: How can one understand another's culture? How can culture be qualitatively and quantitatively assessed? What aspects of a culture make it unique and which connect it to other cultures? If

As we begin to go on an excursion through literature, it is important to understand the concept of what an ethnography is. Ethnography is known to be a descriptive type of work that analyzes culture and customs of individual people. James Clifford has implemented this work into his studies and has influenced many others to do the same. I saw through the books I have read, ethnography makes these books become vivacious for a reader.

American Indian life in the present time can be characterized as one big melting pot. Some societies try to preserve their own identity, while other groups came together in some way and brought their cultures together. A lot of what is known about their music has come from the past century when technological advancements were just beginning to take place. It was also during this period of time that there was a lot of turmoil between the whites. It was obvious that each tribe had its own musical identity, whether it dealt with style, uses of, or ideas of what music was. At that time there were thousands of groups, all speaking their own language, and each had several songs to accompany ceremonies, dances, and to divide society. Anthropologists have put them into categories according to their ways of life.

The term “classical music” refers to the western influence, not the eastern influence of Asia; the two are very different

Though, in spite of waves of cultural differences causing ebbs and flows of the rising and falling of war and peace, the cohesive effects of music seems to ignore cultural differences by giving them reasons to celebrate their commonalities. And the almost infinite number of sounds that creates the musical kaleidoscope of jazz perhaps best embodies music’s cohesive elements.

When music is created, it integrates the cultural and emotional situations that occur in everyday life. People create dances to the

So whilst some parts of the world stayed traditionalist, other parts were taking music to the next step. Western cultures have used music for almost every aspect of life. Music was used for entertainment, religion, war cries and important ceremonies. Some countries have unfortunately lost their culture and heritage thanks to more developed countries trying to expand their empires. A good example of this is when the indigenous Mexican people were murdered in their homeland by the invading Spanish – and replaced the traditional drums and flutes with more vibrant shakers and trumpets. It is no doubt that the way upper countries have acted has greatly affected the distribution of music worldwide.

China has long been the cultural hub of Asia, and has had the longest amount of contact of any Asian country with other Western countries. Ever since the Silk Road was established, China has been trading with other Western countries and exchanging aspects of their cultures with one another. One of these aspects is music. But how exactly has Western music influenced Chinese music? In order to understand this, we must look at the history of Western encounters with China in terms of music.

Music from all over the world presents a range of musical theories. Some of these are documented in writing whilst others are transmitted orally. Discuss and give examples with reference to both Western and non-Western music.

With the variety of life throughout the world, there are different expectations for musical literacy. For instance, the style of Japanese music is very different from that of Cajun music, or Hispanic from West African. These variances give each culture a particular style of expression. Music literacy isn't even confined within cultures; it also produces a way for different cultures to learn from each other. For example, western rock musicians often incorporated traditional Indian music into their style during the 1960's, which broke boundaries between different approaches to literacy.