Annotated Source

Hooray for overlapping coursework! We read this as an assignment in my world music class.

Stone: Theory for Ethnomusicology pp. 12-16 and 18-22


Stone goes over the ideas of method, participant-observation, technique, assumptions, hypotheses/research questions, and study object. This is particularly useful, as she is approaching the ethnographic terms from a specifically ethnomusicological standpoint. 


Some of the take-aways include rethinking my approach to my hypothesis (I think I should change it into a research question - I really don't know what I will find in Bylakuppe, so it might be more useful to acknowledge that ambiguity), reinforcing my plan to learn music as my central research method (really, the more I think about it, the "research" is a bunch of dookie - I honestly just want to learn music and Buddhist philosophy and have fun with it. The research part is to fulfill the rather inane requirements of the program, so I picked an area that I am interested in but would rather not worry about - maybe a drastic, last-minute reworking of the project is in order? Hmm... I've heard that I can just do that in the field, so I'll go with it for now), and refining and broadening my study object (I'm rethinking what I mean by 'youth,' and maybe the truth is that I do want to look just at 18-24 year olds, and anybody younger or older will just be incidental to the core of the project).


Anywho, it was good to know that I'm not alone. Thanks, Sister Stone.