Share your Fieldwork
The primary aim of Outreach Ethnomusicology is to share fieldwork research. Below is a list of items that are included for view by members of the community.
Some of these articles are official documents of research which have been submitted to university departments, so they are set "not viewable" by the public, only registered members of outreach can view them. But, we welcome all sorts of articles within the interests of ethnomusicology, so please get in touch on outreachethnomusicology@gmail.com if you think you would like to contribute.
When we receive documents, we usually will have a full read through, and then reply with a formatted version for the internet, ready to publish. How much exposure or access you want for your work will depend on your own needs, and we will publish or unpublish anything upon request.
Thank you,
Patrick
Music and Recreational Drugs
And this brings us to the point to ask the question: Should the music being
censored as well due to the use of psychedelic and drug related lyrics? Interestingly
enough, almost none of the recordings which I know are censored. Even in
myspace.com/music, under the category House, there are profiles which have
uploaded tunes with obvious sexual and drug connotations. I’m wondering why this
music is not censored. It maybe the case that music industry is clever enough to use
the lyrics they want to use, in a particular place of the piece; and note that every piece
is more that five minutes. I believe that some of the pieces should not be performed at
all. But of course, nobody controls this industry, so producers do what they want and
they do not care if the few lyrics being used in the piece are inappropriate.
It seems that listeners, though, do not mind for the content of the lyrics. They
rather prefer to allow themselves listening to the music while they are on drugs,
alcohol or nothing at all. They want simply to forget and to feel a new experience.
“Raving” is a substitute for the modern society; People want to “escape” from their
reality and their problems. It is so interesting that most of them share a common
background; it is not from which class they are coming from, middle or upper, but
rather that they share the same interest about this music and the things that surround
it. They meditate themselves through this experience.
Raving is about getting in touch with yourself. Meditating through movement so that you can crawl
deep inside the crevices of your own head, experiencing pure internal joy as if you were a child
again…Raving is about being disoriented so you can be re- oriented. It’s about abandoning who you
thought you were, what you look like and how you normally interact…It’s also about learning you
don’t have to do drugs to get there. ( McCall 2001:5 )
Finally, it seems though that there are some people who they do not regret of what
they experienced, but they would not wan to experience it again. Either because they
got bored or because they found another way of life.Wayne Anthony, the above
mentioned dance party promoter at the epilogue of his book summarizes what he did
all the years that he was doing this job and finally he asks the question if he would do
all these things again. His answer is rather definite, I think:
No f…… chance. ( Wayne 1998: 188)
