Explorations in Urban Ethnomusicology: Hard Lessons from the Spectacularly Ordinary

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Explorations in Urban Ethnomusicology: Hard Lessons from the Spectacularly Ordinary

Author(s): Adelaida Reyes SchrammSource: Yearbook for Traditional Music, Vol. 14 (1982), pp. 1-14Published by: International Council for Traditional MusicStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/768067 .

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EXPLORATIONSIN URBAN ETHNOMUSICOLOGY:

HARD

LESSONS FROM

THE

SPECTACULARLY

ORDINARY1

by

Adelaida

Reyes

Schramm

In the

last

decade,

the

emergence

and

rapid

growth

of

ethnomusico-

logical

interest

in

urban

phenomena

has stirred

up

a

fresh sense

of

methodological

and

conceptual inadequacy

in

the face of

current needs.

Confronted

repeatedly by

the

complexities

of the urban

situation,

we are

pressed

to

reassess

the

resources

with

which to

meet new

problems

and

new demands. New

questions

are

being

asked;

old

ones are

being

reformulated.

This

paper

addresses

two

old

questions

viewed

from a

specifically

urban

perspective.

The

first

concerns

delineating

the

object

of

study

in

an urban

milieu.

The

multiplicity

of

rules

which

govern

a

great diversity

of musical

behavior

within

a

broad

range

of events

involving

actors

from a

multi-

cultural population, makes boundaries highly fluid. Where boundaries

that

define musical

repertories,

geographic

areas,

ethnic

identities,

insti-

tutions

and

other such entities

overlap

or

contradict each

other,

how and

on

what

grounds

does

one

carve

out

what

is

to be

studied?

The more

complex

the

socio-musical

domain,

the

more

difficult

and,

at the same

time,

the

more

necessary

it

becomes

to

deal with this issue.

For

as

the

study object

becomes

more

a construct

than a

given,

the

justification

for

its status and

its

choice,

itself becomes

an

analytical enterprise upon

which will

depend,

to a

significant

degree,

the

productivity

of the

study

that is

to

ensue.

The second question is related to the first and concerns socio-cultural

context. What

might

its

implications

be

for work

in

an urban area when

this

partakes

both

of

a

specific

national

culture

as

well as of

the

cosmopolitanism

that,

by

definition,

makes

light

of

culture-specificity?

These

two

questions

in

turn

suggest

a

third:

what

insights

into

the

term,

urban

ethnomusicology,

might

be

gained through

an

investigation

of

the above

issues?2

The

data

which will be used as illustrations

in

the

course

of

exploring

the above issues were collected

in

Manhattan,

one

of

New

York

City's

five

boroughs.

The

study

which motivated

their collection is an

ongoing

one

but

it

focused

particularly

on

free and

public

musical

events

during

the

year

July,

1978

to

July,

1979 and

again during

the

period

June

to

September,

1981.

In an

effort

to

identify ethnomusicological problems

that came

out

of

ethnographic

data,

I

was

attempting

to

construct

an overview of New

York

City's

musical

life when I

was struck

by

the

proliferation

of

free and

public

musical

events.

Their

sheer

volume and the

frequency

and

regu-



2 /

1982

YEARBOOK

FOR TRADITIONAL

MUSIC

larity

of

their

occurrence

compel

one

to

assume

that

they occupy

a

signi-

ficant

position

in

and are a

major

feature

of

the

city's

total

musical life.

It

is

virtually impossible

to

ignore

the

facts

that:

1)

they

attract

huge

numbers

of

people

from

all strata of

society

because

they

are free of

charge,

are

widely publicized

and

take

place

in

highly

accessible

places;

and

2)

they

draw

support

from

institutions

large

and

small,

from the

private

as well as the

public

sectors.

Certainly,

no

ethnography

of New

York could be

anywhere

near

complete

without an

account

of

these

phenomena.

It was therefore evident that

the

order

underlying

this

apparently amorphous

mass

needed

to

be discovered. To

this

end,

a

preliminary

delimitation

was effected.

Free and public events were to include only those events which took

place

in

Manhattan and which were

publicized throughout

the

city

via

the

major newspapers,

magazines,

the

radio,

and

a

telephone

number

that

gives

out

a

daily

listing

of

free

and

public

events. Excluded

were

those events

brought

to

public

attention

through

church,

school and

community

bulletin

boards,

foreign-language

newspapers

and other

such

restricted means.

Using

these

constraints,

I counted a

total

of

2682 events

in

the

year

1978-79.

It is

not

possible

to

estimate the total number of

participants

in these

events.

For individual

occurrences,

audiences

range

from a

handful

of

people to thousands. A free outdoor concert by the New York Philhar-

monic

Orchestra,

for

example,

was estimated

to

have drawn

150,000

people, reported by

one

newspaper

to be half the

population

of the state

of

Wyoming

and more than that

of the

city

of

Reno or Tallahassee

(Jenkins

1978:14).

Audiences consist

of

down-and-out

park

bench

habitues,

well-dressed

shoppers,

blue-collar

workers from construction

sites

on

their

periodic

breaks,

and

white

collar workers with offices

in the

vicinity

of the

performances. They

include

the

young

and

the

old,

pre-

schoolers,

students

and

senior

citizens;

tourists as well as residents

in

the

area where performances take place, or admirers who follow their

favored

performers

as

these

travel around

the

city

on moveable

stages

like the

Jazzmobile,

the

Dancemobile,

or

the Electronic Musicmobile.

The

performers

may

be

young,

self-taught

amateurs

or

seasoned,

highly

trained

professionals.

They

may

be

pick-up

groups

like

the

CETA-

funded3 ensembles

or

established

groups

like

the

New

York Philharmonic

and

the

Metropolitan Opera Company.

The

events themselves are

of two

major

types:

the

yearly

festivals,

and

the series

of

events

than

run

either

seasonally,

like the concerts at Lincoln

Center's

Damrosch

Park,

or

year-long,

like

the

programs

at

the

Citicorp

Atrium and St. Patrick'sCathedral. Other bases for grouping the events

together

were

elusive;

the

apparent

inconsistencies were

more

striking

than

the

consonances or similarities.

In the annual

Japanese

O-bon festival,

for

example,

the

public

is

invited

to

participate,

and the result

is

a

spectacle

where some

100

Japanese

dancers and

musicians

in

national

costume

perform

with non-

Japanese

in

I-love-New-York

T-shirts,4 shorts,

and

a

variety

of

other

summer

wear. The Korean

annual

festival

of

1978

featured Korean



URBAN

ETHNOMUSICOLOGY

/

3

sopranos

in

native

attire and

Korean tenors

in

tuxedos

singing

Italian

arias. A

Sri-Chinmoy

meditation session5

attracted additional

attention

through the participation of Carlos Santana, well-known as a Latin azz

rock

fusion

star,

who

played

Sri-Chinmoy's

compositions

on

an electric

guitar.

The Fiestas

Patronales,

announced as

an effort to

keep

alive the

traditions of Puerto

Rico,

boasted at

the

same time of the

diversity

of its

participants:

Argentinians,

Cubans,

East

Indians,

Filipinos,

Italians,

and

others.

The

spirit

of

these

festivals is

probably

summarized

in

a

song

sung

over

and over

again during

the Little

Spain

Festival of

1979.

Although

the

organizers

initially signalled

a

differentiation

between

Castilians

(as

they

call

themselves)

and other

Hispanics

in the

city,

this

song had a line of text that repeated ...... se salvara (...... will be

saved)

in

every

strophe.

The blank was filled with the

name

of

a

country

introduced

by participants

from

that

country.

Thus,

they sang:

Espana

se

salvara ,

Puerto Rico se

salvara ,

Peru, Honduras,

Nicaragua,

.

. .

In

the

end,

everyone sang,

New York se

salvara.

The musical

repertories

and

their

instrumental

treatment

are

similarly

varied. A

group

that billed itself as

performing

Middle Eastern

music

included Greek and French

songs

with

Arabic,

Hebrew and

Turkish

texts

sung

by

a

lady

who

claims

to

have

been

born

in

Transylvania.

The

ensemble

included an

amplified

oud,

a

darabukka,

and a

clarinet. A

balalaika orchestra playing at Lincoln Center's Damrosch Park

performed

transcriptions

of

Tchaikowsky

symphonies

and

Rossini

overtures

along

with Russian

folk tunes. An

ensemble

of

150

tubas

played

Christmas

carols

at

the

Channel

Gardens

on

Fifth

Avenue as

part

of the

Rockefeller

Center annual Yuletide

celebration.6

For the

first

two months of

summer, 1978,

the 464 free and

public

musical events that

took

place

in

Manhattan

appeared

to

have

no

clear

patterns.

The fact

that

they

had

a music

component

and were

free

to

the

public

were

not

distinctive

since there

were

other such events

that

differed

only

in

the means

by

which

and

the

extent to

which

information

about

them

was

disseminated. But

by

the

end of the

summer,

with

a

larger

data base

(approximately

633

events7),

regularities

began

to

emerge.

The

features,

free and

public,

were

augmented

by

others

that

began

to bind the

events

into

a

unit.

These

events

owe their

existence to

sponsorship-by

federal,

state

and/or

city

agencies,

by

business

enterprise,

by

civic and

church

groups,

and

by

educational

institutions.

They,

therefore,

represent

to

a

consider-

able

degree

the

sponsoring organizations'

views of

what the

city

popula-

tion

is

like,

what

they

will

respond

to,

what will

gain

their

favor,

and

what will eventually redound to the benefit and serve the purpose of the

sponsoring

groups.

The

relationship

between the

compon-

ents-sponsors, performers,

and

audiences-suggests

a

dynamic

that

accounts

for

the

continued

functioning

of

a

system

of

which

they

are all a

part.

Systematicity

also

began

to

be evident from

the

patterning

in

the

occurrence of

these

events.

In

June

and

August,

but

specially

in

July,

the

largest

number

of

events

occurred

on

Mondays,

Tuesdays,

and

partic-

REYESSCHRAMM



4

/

1982

YEARBOOK FOR

TRADITIONAL

MUSIC

ularly

on

Wednesdays

when the

number

peaked

to

an

average

of 12

per

Wednesday.

By

October,

the

supremacy

of

Wednesday

began

to

be

challenged by

Thursday,

Friday,

and

specially Sunday

when the

average

number of events

rose

to

a

peak

of

16.2

per

Sunday

in

December.

These

findings

suggest

that free

and

public

musical events are

geared

specifically

toward

New

York audiences since

they

reflect

a

population

movement

that

is

characteristic

of the

city.

For while

tourists and

visitors

pour

into the

city during

the

summer,

New Yorkers

tend to

flee

the

city's

heat

at least

during

the

weekends.

This

finding

in

turn indicates that

the

bulk of

the

audiences come

from

the

five-day-week,

9:00

a.m.-to-5:00

p.m.

work force.

During 1978-79, virtually no events took place before noon. But by

12:00

on

weekdays,

the

lunch break for

most

workers,

activity

rose

markedly.

On

an

average

daily

basis,

there were an

almost

equal

number

of noontime

events

on

weekends as

on

weekdays

for

five months

of the

year

(August, September,

October,

November,

and

January).

But for

the

rest of the

year,

the

average

rose

to

as much as 10 times

(in

May)

as

many

noontime events

on

weekdays

as

on weekends. The relation

of

temporal

distribution

of occurrences

to

audience

population

is

made

more defini-

tive

by

a

look

at the 2:00

to

4:00

p.m.

time

slot.

Here,

events

declined

dramatically

on

weekdays.

On an

average daily

basis,

there

were,

for

every

month of

the

year during

those

hours,

more

events

on

weekends

than

on

weekdays-ranging

from

6

to

12 times

as

many.

The

importance

to

free and

public

musical events of the

weekday,

9:00-to-5:00

working

population

is

further

reinforced

by

the

spatial

distribution

of

those events. While the financial district

around

Wall

Street,

and

midtown Manhattan

(where

the

densest

concentration

of

office

space

and

shopping

areas is

located)

are alive

with the

sounds

of

music

from noon to

dusk,

the

former

falls

virtually

silent after

dark,

and

the latter

replaces

the kind of event under

study

with

a

smattering

of

random performers trying to catch the theater or restaurant crowd.

The shift

in

location

from

business

to

residential

areas

during

the time

slot,

7:00

to

8:00

p.m.

which

shows the heaviest

clustering

of

events

throughout

the

week,

thus

coincides with

the

time

in

New York

City's

daily

round

of

activities

when the audience

of

9:00-to-5:00

workers is

augmented by

the

general

populace.

Exemplifying

the above

patterns

are two of

the

best-known

and

most

well-established series

of

free

and

public

musical events

in

Manhattan.

With

very

rare

exceptions,

the

19-year-old

Jazzmobile

summer

concerts in Manhattan are scheduled on

weekdays

at 7:00 p.m. All

performances

take

place

on

a mobile

stage

which is

transported

from

neighborhood

to

neighborhood attracting

residents

who listen

from

apartment

windows and

stoops

or

who

congregate

on the streets

to

socialize.

Jazzmobile

makes

explicit

its

resident and

neighborhood

orien-

tation:

it

brings

jazz

directly

to

the

people

where

they

live

(Anon.

1981:3).

Neighborhood

associations and

community

groups

respond

by

inviting

the

Jazzmobile

to

their

localities,

taking responsibility

for local



URBAN ETHNOMUSICOLOGY / 5

arrangements,

and

frequently

specifying

their choice of

performing

groups.

In

contrast,

none of the musical events at Rockefeller Center (in

existence

for almost 50

years)

start after 5:00

p.m.

Its entire

program

of

free and

public

events

takes

place

also

on

weekdays

but it adheres to

a

noon

schedule

or to

a 4:30

or

5:00

p.m.

time

slot.

These

performances

are

given

at

one of the

Center's

public spaces

in the heart of

midtown

Manhattan's business and

entertainment district. Rockefeller

Center,

Inc.

intends these

concerts

to

help

create an

environment attractive

to

desirable tenants

which

at

present

includes a

list

of

companies,

firms

and

institutions

that

reads

like a 'Who's Who'

in

advertising,

chemicals, . . . oil, publishing, etc. (Anon. 1979:10-11). The employees

and

clients-prospective

and actual-of

these institutions

are

therefore

the

audiences at

which the

Center's

musical events are aimed.

Figure

1

summarizes

the

features

of

time,

place,

target

audience,

and

sponsor

motivation

of

the

Jazzmobile

and Rockefeller

Center

free

and

public

musical events. These features

particularize

the

general

obser-

vations made

earlier,

and illustrate

the

patterning

that underlies the

huge

mass

of

free

and

public

musical events.

Regularities

in

spatial

and

temporal

distribution

identify

the core of the

target

audience: the

9:00-to-5:00

working

population,8

undifferentiated

by ability

or

desire

to

pay to hear music. It is an audience core that includes a major portion of

the New

York

population

before

special

interests,

particularized

reper-

tories

and context

preferences

segment

them

and mark the

resultant

groups

as different

types

of

audiences

for

different

types

of

musical

events.

In other

words,

the data

point

to

the

pool

of

potential

receivers

in

the

communicative structure

that

is

every

musical

event.

The

mundaneness

of

the

above

information,

particularly

for

New

Yorkers,

belies its

significance

as

data.

From the

perspective

of

many city

dwellers,

what

it

amounts

to is no

more

than

a

statement of the

obvious.9

But when

one takes

into

consideration the

data

base thus far-a

confluence

of the

musical and

extramusical,

and

the

emergent configur-

ation-the distinctiveness of

New York's free

and

public

musical events

(from

this

point

on to

be

refered

to

as

FPME)

begins

to

become

apparent.

There

are

not

many places

where the

following

are

such

an

intrinsic

part

of social

life: the

diversity

of

cultures

represented

in

the

audience

popula-

tion;

the

corresponding

diversity

of

musics and

musical

tastes;

the

great

number of

events and

sponsoring

organizations;

the

masses of

people

and the

density

of

their

interactions;

and

the

way

these

elements combine

and

respond

to

the

city's

public spaces

and

to

the

rhythms

of

its

daily

life.10

On the

basis

of

the

preceding

discussion,

it

can

be

argued

that FPME

constitutes

a

proper object

of

ethnomusicological

investigation.

Contrasts with

other kinds of

musical

events

(e.g.,

private performances,

paid

concerts,

random and

spontaneous

music-making)

reinforce

its

distinctness. Its

context-the

sum total of

the

city's

attributes

and

properties

that

impinge

upon

it-lends

it

its

special

character.

It

can,

however,

be

just

as

validly

demonstrated

that units like

the

REYES

CHRAMM



6 / 1982 YEARBOOK

FOR TRADITIONAL

MUSIC

Jazzmobile

and

the

Rockefeller series

are

structures

in

themselves,

entities the internal cohesion

of

which

become more

clearly

evident

when

foregrounded

by

FPME as their immediate context. Context and unit of

investigation

can

therefore

be

the

same

set

of

observable

phenomena.

Their extrication

from

each

other becomes a function

of theoretical

orientation.

The

possibility

of confusion when

the

same

form can have different

functions underscores the

necessity

of

restating

the

twin concerns

of

this

paper:

1)

how and

on

what

grounds

a unit

of

investigation

is

identified;

and

2)

the context out

of which the unit draws

for its definition.

It

also

underscores

the need

to start with the

assumption

that units of investi-

gation have no pre-existent and immutable boundaries. Such boundaries

are

to

be discovered

from

ethnographic

data

that do

not

separate

the

musical

from

the extramusical.

In this

sense,

the

study

object

is

a

construct.

The

logic

that

leads

to

the

discovery

of

the unit

inevitably

sheds

light

on the context: boundaries are

a statement

of relations

between

what

they

contain

and what

they

exclude.

This old lesson becomes

specially potent

in

urban

ethnomusicological

research-the

possibility

of

confusion

increases

with

social

complexity.

But

the additional value

of this old

precept

lies

in

what

it

can offer

toward

a

more

general

ethnomusicological

objective:

an

integrated

explanation

of the musical and the extra-musical. When the features

attributed

to

a

study-object

derive

not

only

from the

object

itself

but also

from

the

larger

unit

of which

it

is a

part,

when

the

linkage

between

focus

and

context is established

as essential

from

the

start,

the

problems

that

one extracts

for

investigation

and

the

explanation

that ensues

will more

likely

be a unified

treatment

of the

musical

and

the more

broadly

social

rather

than dichotomized

bodies

of

information

that

will need

at some

later

point

to be

reconciled.

The

applicability

of the above

thoughts

on

study-object

delineation

and on the integration of study-object and context can be apprehended

by

taking

a

closer

look at

our

earlier

examples.

The

total

repertory

of the

Jazzmobile

includes a

wide

variety

not

only

of

jazz styles

but also

of

Latin

American

popular

and

dance

music

types.

Although

the Latin

American

programs

are

occasionally

billed

as Latin

jazz,

there are a

considerable

number

of

items

which,

from

the

stand-

point

of musical

features,

are

not

jazz

(e.g., guaguangco,

merengue,

salsa).

Obviously,

the criteria

for

inclusion

into the

musical

corpus

that

will be

analyzed

and

described can

derive

from a number

of

factors;

but

criteria that

emerge

from

data

cannot

disregard sponsor

motivation,

features of location and audience, and performer input (see figure 1).

The

neighborhood

orientation

of the

Jazzmobile

and

the

mobility

of

its

stage bring

the

Jazzmobile

performances

to

audiences

that

differ

from

each

other

primarily

in ethnic

composition.

Specifically,

the

majority

of

these

performances

are

given

in

communities

with

large

Black

American

and/or

Hispanic populations.

Audience

composition

and

community

initiative

impinge

upon

the choice

of

performers

who are

then

given

a

free

hand

in

selecting

the

music

they perform.

These

facts,

taken

in



Figure

1

Day

of

the

Time

Location

Sponsor

motivation

week

Jazzmobile

weekdays

7:00

p.m.

residen- the

preservation

and

tial

area*

conservation of

jazz;

to

bring

jazz

to

the

people

where

they

live

Rockefeller

weekdays noon; business the creation of an

Center

series

4:30

or and

enter-

environment attrac-

5:00

p.m.

tainment

tive to the Center's

district

business tenants

*There

may

be 1 or 2

exceptions

per

season.

**This

represents

he

bulk of

audiences. The

number

of

non-residents varies

according

to

the

proximity

of

pu

tation and

to

a

lesser

degree,

to

the

drawing

power

of

the

featured

performing

group.

***This abel is

emic, i.e.,

it

originates

from

Jazzmobile.

It

includes what the

larger

society

commonly

calls

and dance

music.



8

/

1982

YEARBOOK FOR TRADITIONAL MUSIC

conjunction

with

Jazzmobile's

dedication

to

the

conservation and

propa-

gation

of

jazz

(Anon. 1981:3)

suggest

that what

Jazzmobile

chooses

to

include under the label, jazz,

responds

to more than the musical features

generally

attributed

to

jazz.

The

repertory

that

Jazzmobile

calls

jazz,

while

coinciding

at

many points

with

what

the

society-at-large

under-

stands

by

it,

differs

at

other

points

because

it

responds

to

a socio-musical

consensus

among

the

Jazzmobile

personnel,

its

artists,

its

sponsors

and

the

particular

local

communities

who

are

its

audience.

In

the

case

of

the Rockefeller

Center

series,

time,

place,

and audience

translate to office

hours,

office

environments,

office

employees

and

clientele that

are

markedly

cosmopolitan

and

culturally

diverse. The

concomitant music repertories evade ready identification with specific

groups.

But the

apparent

arbitrariness

of

a

corpus

that

includes

Handel,

Beethoven,

Rossini,

Brahms;

Gershwin,

Scott

Joplin,

Duke

Ellington;

Latin

jazz, operatic

arias,

bluegrass,

blues

and

swing

becomes

apparently

purposive

when one notes

that

no

item

antedates the

Baroque,

and

nothing

in

the art

music

repertory goes past

late Romanticism.

Every-

thing

stops

short

of the

electronic,

avant-garde,

or

experimental.

Conspicuously

absent are non-American ethnic

music,

and

highly

amplified

forms such as disco

or

hard rock.

In contrast

to

the

Jazzmobile

repertory,

therefore,

the total

corpus

of

the Rockefeller Center events is better delineated by what it excludes

than

by

what

it

includes. The

catholicity

of

tastes

represented by

the

Rockefeller

Center

audiences is

addressed

not

by matching

specific

cultural

groups

with

corresponding

musics but

by aiming

for

a common

denominator,

a mainstream musical

idiom

that avoids

strong

associa-

tions

with

particular

time-periods,

musical

genres,

performers

and

styles.

Since

the

rationale that

governs

the

selection and

ordering

of aural

phenomena

inevitably

pervades

their

analysis,

the value

assigned

to

extra-musical

considerations

in the

selection

process

is

likely

to

affect

the

outcome of

the

study.

Had

the

guaguangco,

salsa,

and

merengue

items

been excluded from the

Jazzmobile

corpus

on the

grounds

that as musical

categories

they

are

not

jazz,

the

resulting

analysis

and

explanation

of

the

Jazzmobile

as unit

of

investigation

could

easily

have

sidestepped

the

issue

of

why

those items were there

to

begin

with;

why

they

were allowed

to

be there

by

those whose

primary

objective

is the

propagation

and

conser-

vation

of

jazz.

Similarly,

if the

selection

of

musical items from the Rockefeller

Center

series were

governed

by

the

assumption

that order comes from

conformity

to

a monolithic

set

of

musical

rules,

the

ensuing

explanation

could easily be warped by the diminution, misplacement or loss of extra-

musical

data.

To

summarize,

Manhattan's FPME is an

ethnographic

fact

defined

by

musical and extra-musical attributes

that

are internal to it

as well as

imposed

upon

it

from the

outside.

Jointly,

these attributes

justify

FPME

either as

unit

of

investigation

the

immediate context

of

which is

Manhattan,

or

as itself the

immediate

context for

units like the

Jazz-

mobile

and

the

Rockefeller

Center series.

Either

way,

context

and

study-



URBAN

ETHNOMUSICOLOGY

/

9

object

are

seen

as

co-defining,

and

their

study

as such

safeguards

the

ethnomusicological

interest

in the intrinsic

linkage

of the

musical and

the

extra-musical. This interest remains fundamental regardless of whether

the

explanation

sought

is

for urban

phenomena

or for

any

other

phenomena

amenable

to

ethnomusicological

treatment.

Where,

then,

does the deviation

take

place

that

requires

the new

desig-

nation,

urban

ethnomusicology?

What

makes

this new label

necessary

or

desirable? Similar

questions

were asked

of

anthropology

when the

term,

urban

anthropology,

began

to be used.

Subsequent

discussions

within

that

discipline

might prove

instructive

to

ethnomusicology.

Distinctions

have

been

drawn

between

anthropology

in the

city

and

anthropology of

the

city (Arensberg 1968:3;

Eames

and

Goode

1977:30-35;

Fox

1972;

Gulick

1968:46;

Leeds

1968:31;

Wirth

1938).

Taking

a

parallel

view,

it

may

be said

that

an

ethnomusicology

which

concerns

itself

with

phenomena

in

urban

areas

takes

the urban

as

accident,

i.e.,

extrinsic

to

the

study-object

and

hence

to its

explanation.

An

ethnomusicology

that

concerns

itself

with

phenomena

of urban

areas

takes

the urban

as

essential, i.e.,

intrinsic

to

the

study

object

and

hence

to its

explanation.

To

explore

the ramifications

of

this

distinction,

let us

return

to

the

data

of FPME.

Diversity permeates

all

the

components

of

this class

of events-the

participants, the musical repertories, the behaviors, and the situations in

which

such events

occur.

The co-occurrences

and interactions

among

these

components

are

highly

complex:

ethnic music events

are

not

restricted

to

members

of the

corresponding

ethnic

group;

art music

performers

may

also

be

performers

of

other musical

types;

audience

members

who

dance,

sing

or

clap rhythms

at Latin American

popular

music

performances

in one context

may

listen

quietly

to

the same music

in

another

environment.

The

involvement

of all kinds

of

media and

tech-

nology,

of

large

masses

of

people,

of

a broad

range

of

secular

and

religious agencies-all

bear

the

hallmarks

of

urban life.

To create order on the basis of the

assumption

that

diversity

is

merely

the sum total

of

a number

of

discrete musics

or

social

groups

counters the

reality

that

in the

urban

area,

these

diverse units do

not

merely

co-exist

but

interact.

To

assume that

there is one

over-arching

musical

system

would

be difficult

if not

impossible

to

maintain;

on the

basis

of

a

single

set

of

standards,

irregularities

could

easily

outnumber

regularities.

The lack

of fit

between

these

assumptions-probably

the most

common

in

the

ethnomusicological

literature-and

the data

from FPME

compels

entertaining

an alternative

assumption:

the

multiplicity

of

seemingly discrepant elements submits to an urban socio-musical order

that creates

a

balance between musical

needs and musical

resources. This

order

governs

the

interpenetration

of

musical

elements and

actors

from

a

variety

of

cultures and social

groups

as

these

respond

to the

many

different kinds of contexts

that

complex

societies

typically

generate.

The

validity

of this

assumption

can

be

fully

demonstrated

only

in

a

work much

larger

than this one.

For the

moment,

it

suffices

to

point

out

that,

of the three alternative

assumptions

considered,

it is the

only

one

REYES

SCHRAMM



10

/

1982

YEARBOOK

FOR

TRADITIONAL

MUSIC

that

does

no

violence to

the

data.

It is

therefore the

assumption

that

maximizes the

data's

potential

for

explaining

FPME

as

urban

phenomenon.

Support

for

the

assumption

can also

be

derived from

the

analogous

but

much wider

experience

of

sociolinguistics

in

dealing

with

hetero-

geneity, diversity

and variation

in

complex

societies. Order comes

from

what

Halliday

calls

a

grammar

of choices

(1978:4),

the

grammatical

being

defined as

what

is

acceptable .

In

this

view,

language

is a

resource

for

meaning,

with

meaning

defined

in

terms of

function

(Ibid.:17).

Echoing

Labov who

has

persuasively

argued

that the

systema-

ticity

of

diversity

in

complex

societies is made

manifest

not

so

much

in

the sound phenomena of speech but in social attitudes toward them

(1972:248),

Halliday

notes

that

divergence

is

replaced by

conver-

gence-not

of

dialects since

diversity

and variation is intrinsic

in

the

system

but

of

attitudes

toward

language.

These are as

remarkably

consistent

as

speech

habits

are

extremely

variable

(Ibid.:155). Thus,

language

in

an urban

setting

is best described in terms of

the consensus

that binds variation and makes

it

systemic.

The

urban

speech community

is a

heterogeneous

unit

showing

diversity

not

only

between one

individual and another but also

within one individual .... We cannot describe urban speech in

terms of some

invariant

norm

and

of

deviation

from it

.... The

significant

fact is

that . . . variation

is

meaningful.

The

meaning

of

a

particular

choice

in

a

particular

instance is a function

of

the whole

complex

of

environmental

factors

which,

when taken

together,

define

any

exchange

of

meanings

as

being

at some level a realization

of the

social

system.

(Ibid.:156)

Hence,

in

the

interpretation

of

language,

the

organizing concept

that

we

need is

. . .

system.

With

the notion of

system,

we

can

represent

language

as a resource, in terms of the choices that are available, the

interconnection

of

these choices and

the

conditions

affecting

their

access. We can relate these choices

to

recognizable

and

significant

social contexts

(Ibid.:192)

Two

points,

highly

relevant

to

FPME,

are salient

in

these

passages:

1)

the

inevitability

and

functionality

of

diversity

in

complex

societies;

and

2)

the

importance

of choice and consensus

in

ordering

difference.

The first is an

empirical

reality

that

method

may

not

excise;

it

is

what

method needs

to

explain.

The

second asserts

the

centrality

to

explanation

of the human component-in FPME, all the participants, performers,

sponsors

and

audiences.

These

hold the

key

to

the

grammar

of choices .

Like

the

speakers

in

an urban

speech

community,

they

have access

to

diverse musical

resources

and are conversant

with

multiple

sets

of socio-

musical rules.

These resources and

the

ability

to

control

them

are

part

of

the native

paraphernalia

that allow

participants

in FPME

to

invoke

the

particular

set that

is

appropriate

to

each

of the

many

contexts

that

are

part

of

urban

existence.



URBAN ETHNOMUSICOLOGY / 11

The relevance of

the above

two

points

to urban musical

phenomena

in

general

can

only

be

presumed;

ethnomusicological

work in this area

has

barely begun. But if the presumption can be made on the basis of

similarities

between

language

and music

in

urban

environments

and

on

the

basis

of

what FPME

indicates,

then the

model

that

ethnomusicology

is

challenged

to

construct

for

music

of

complex

societies is one

in

which:

1)

diversity

is

functional;

and

2)

the

consensual

is

a determinant of the

grammatical .

Neither

diversity

nor

consensus is new

to

ethnomusicology.

But the

treatment

of

consensus has been conditioned

by

the

dichotomous

view of

the

socio-cultural

and the

musicological

components

of the

discipline,12

and

the

treatment

of

diversity

has been conditioned

by

a

perception

of

what

ethnomusicology traditionally

studies.

Consensus about

music,

more

often than

not in

the

form of

verbal

behavior,

is

assigned

to

the

socio-cultural and serves

primarily

as

supporting

evidence

in

the

explanation

of

musical

products

and

behavior. Consensus

in

music is

considered

implicit

in

the musical

product

and

may

or

may

not

be made

explicit

in

its

analysis.

Consensus

as

determinant

of

the

grammatical ,

however,

requires

the

blurring

of those

distinctions.

In the

model that

urban

phenomena urges

us

to

consider,

it

is

to

be

sought

equally

in

the

socio-cultural and

in

the

musicological;

it

is

integral

to

explanation.

Diversity carries the stamp of the paradigm, simple-folk-non-Western

(Kunst

1969:1)

which remains

influential

in

ethnomusicological

method.

Wittingly

or

unwittingly,

we

aim

for

the

ethnomusicological

equivalent

of

Chomsky's

'ideal

speaker-listener

in

a

completely homogeneous

speech

community'

as the

object

of

linguistic

description

(Labov

1972:267).

But the

compatibility

of this

ideal

with

an urban

object

of

ethnomusicological

description

is

open

to

question.

What

the ideal

stands

for

is

competence

in

a

monosystem

and a

high

level of

abstraction

which

becomes

virtually

unusable because

most of

the

distinctions

that

are

important

[for

performance

in

the

polysystem

that is a

complex

society]

are idealized out of the

picture

(Halliday

1978:37-38).

The value of the

work

that has been

conditioned

by

the

above

factors

cannot be

overestimated,

but strict

adherence

to

them can

be

dysfunc-

tional and

severely limiting

when

dealing

with

music

of

urban

areas. It

may

in

fact be

useful

to

speculate

that the

non-Western

part

of

ethno-

musicology's

orientation

has

prejudiced

more than the

treatment of

the

plural

and the

consensual. The

attractiveness of the

non-Western and the

distant

has

too

often

been

translated

to

indifference

toward and even

disdain

for

the

familiar.

Cities,

particularly

Western

cities,

are

thought

to

be commonplace; there is hardly an ethnomusicologist who has not had

extensive

exposure

to

them.

Hence,

the

jadedness

that

has made

it

easy

to

overlook

phenomena

as

ubiquitous

and

ordinary

as

FPME.

And

yet

it

is

to

this

very

ordinariness,

a

consequence

of

widespread

use and

broad-based

consensus

as

to

value,

that

such

phenomena

owe

their

existence. It is this

ordinariness

which,

in

a

sense,

justifies

their

claim to

being

not

merely

in

the

city

but

of

the

city.

But

it

is also

what

obliterates

the

romance that

ethnomusicologists

frequently

seek.

REYES CHRAMM



12

/

1982

YEARBOOK FOR

TRADITIONAL

MUSIC

The

other

side

of

jadedness,

therefore,

is the

pursuit

of the

exotic and

the

marginal

within

urban locales

(Fox

1972:205)

and the

imposition

of

methods that make the urban merely an accident of location.13 For this

course of

action,

the

need for the

qualified

designation,

urban ethno-

musicology,

finds little

justification.

This

line

of

argument

directs

us

to

a consideration

of

alternative

options:

1)

the

banishment of the

qualifier,

urban,

on

the

grounds

that

it

is

redundant;

or

2)

the

use

of

the

term,

urban

ethnomusicology,

to

refer

specifically

to

studies

pertaining

to

music

of

urban

areas. The first

option

recalls an

earlier debate over

the

subject

matter of

ethnomusicology:

whether

it

includes

all musics

regardless

of

location,

type,

or

cultural

origin

(as

in

Rhodes

1956),

or

whether

it

excludes the

art music of the

Western world

and the

music

of

complex

societies

(as

in

Kunst

1969).

The

rationale

for

this

option

is

embedded

in

that

side

of

the

debate that

argues

for

all-inclusiveness.

This

needs

no

recapitulation

here.

The second

option

warrants

a more extensive

exploration,

far

more

than can be

accomplished

here,

but

the FPMEdata

suggest

that there are

empirical

and

pragmatic

grounds

for

taking

the

music of

urban areas as

the

subject

matter of

urban

ethnomusicology:

1.

Cross-cultural

generalization,

important

for

theory

construction,

is

better served

by

a

conception

of

the

urban as

essential rather than

accidental. The very term urban invites such generalization. All urban

areas,

despite

their

distinctiveness,

belong

to

a worldwide network of

analogous

entities bound

together

by political,

economic,

and

ideo-

logical

interests.

They

all

possess

a

measure

of

ambiguity

born

of

an

inner-directedness

toward their

national

culture,

and an

outer-directed-

ness toward the

rest

of

the world

with which

they

are

in

continual

contact. New York

exemplifies

this

urban

condition: . ..

is it

any

wonder that there is so

much

ambiguity

in

the

symbolization

of

this

metropolis,

this

New York which is 'at once the

climactic

synthesis

of

America and

yet

the

negation

of

America

in

that

it

has

so

many

characteristics called un-American?'

(Strauss

1976:122).

FPME is the

ethnomusicological

analog

of this

urban condition.

Despite

its identifica-

tion

with New

York,

it

has

many

things

about

it

that are

disturbingly

familiar even

to

those

who

do

not

know New

York but

who do know

other

cities.

2. The music

of

urban areas

provides

some of the

strongest

stimuli

for

conceptual

and

methodological

innovation.

The

duality

of the

modern

city

which is

part

of

a nation-state and at the

same

time

a

member of

an

international class

requires

a

treatment of its

music

that

is

similarly

Janus-like-one that looks simultaneously at the culture-specific as well

as

the

cosmopolitan.

FPME,

in

its

dependence

on

musical needs and

resources that

transcend

those of

a

single

culture,

not

only

indicates the

feasibility

of

such treatment but insists

on

its

implementation.

3. The

powerful

influence

of

the

paradigm

centered

on

the

tribal,

the

folk,

and the

non-Western needs

to

be

counterbalanced

by

underscoring

the

music

(unlimited

as

to

type)

of

complex

societies

(also

unlimited

as

to

type

and

geographical

location)

if

ethnomusicology

is

to

broaden

its



URBAN

ETHNOMUSICOLOGY

/

13

perspectives.

The

utility

of the

term,

urban

ethnomusicology,

is

there-

fore

optimal

when

it

applies

to music of urban areas. It is in this

domain

that the countervailing forces are perhaps strongest. It is therefore this

domain

that

presents

ethnomusicology

with

a new

frontier.

NOTES

1. This is a revised and expanded version of a paper read at the twenty-fifth Conference

of

the

Society

for

Ethnomusicology

at

Indiana

University

in

Bloomington

on

November

21,

1980.

2.

Although

the

term,

urban

ethnomusicology,

is

now

commonly

used,

there

has

been

very

little

discussion

of

what

it

represents.

3.

CETA

is

an

acronym

for

Comprehensive

Employment

Training

Act,

a

government

program

that is

currently

being

dismantled. It

provided

employment

for

youth.

4. I love

New York is

a

promotional

slogan

that

is

used

on

bumper

stickers,

clothing,

souvenirs,

and

objects

of all kinds. It is

conspicuous

for the red

heart that

frequently

replaces

the

word love

in

the

slogan.

5.

Sri-Chinmoy

is

a

Bengali

spiritual

master who claims to

have established

spiritual

centers

throughout

the world. He

or

his

disciples

frequently

perform

or

conduct

meditation sessions in concert settings in New York.

6.

In

1981,

the

Eighth

Tubachristmas concert at

this

location

featured 500

tubas.

7. The exact

number is difficult

to

ascertain because

The

New York

Times,

one

of

my

sources,

went

on

strike and did

not

publish

for ten

days.

8. Performances

that take

place

in

the

post-dinner

evening

hours

do

not

nullify

this

observation.

In

cases

like the

Jazzmobile

which has

made a commitment

to

bring jazz

to

people

where

they

live,

the

choice

of time

slot

(7:00

PM)

coincides with

the

core

group's

shift from

place

of

work

to

place

of residence.

9. The need to

make such a

statement nonetheless is

suggested

by

a

description

of

New

York

as

being

virtually

music-less

during

the

summer. This

appeared

in

an article

in

The

New York Times

(Waleson

1982:1).

10. Worth

mentioning

is the

role

of

churches

as locale

for

FPME.

Contrary

to

the

impres-

sion that FPME are

primarily

summer

phenomena,

they

in fact occur

regularly

throughout

the

year.

In

1978,

December was

the busiest

month,

with

264

events.

April

had the lowest

number

with

183

events. It

is, however,

what makes this rela-

tively

consistent

year-long

distribution

possible

that is a matter of

interest,

for

the

shift of

locale from

parks

and

streets

in

the summer

to

churches

in

the winter

suggests

some

equivalence

of

function

between these kinds of

places

in

the

context of New

York.

11.

In

the

Jazzmobile

and

Rockefeller

Center

events,

for

example,

this

assumption

allowed

for

inclusion of

musical items and

participants

that the two

other

assumptions

would

either

have

picked apart

or

excluded at the risk of

losing

those

very

elements

that were

crucial

in the

analysis

of these

events as urban

phenomena.

12.

McAllester's

review of

Music As Culture by M. Herndon and N. McLeod describes

the

situation

succinctly:

Musicology

and

anthropology

have

proven

to be

uneasy

bedfellows .

Thus,

he

notes,

Herndon and McLeod have

fallen

short of their

mark,

probably

because four of

five readers

of

the

manuscript objected

to

the

mixing

of the

musical and

cultural

realms

(1980:305-306).

13. The

consequence

is a

perpetuation

of

the

myth

that urban

units are autonomous

and

self-contained. Leeds

describes a concrete

situation

in the

study

of

favelas

in

Rio de

Janeiro.

His

judgement:

.

. .

the

myth

perpetuated

the

questions

asked,

which

perpetuated

the

reception

of

only

certain kinds and

interpretations

of

data which

perpetuated

the

myth

(1968:40).

REYES SCHRAMM



14

/

1982

YEARBOOK

FOR TRADITIONAL

MUSIC

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