Notes from the Field

My first ethnographic fieldwork experience was a short trip to Jamaica, where I interviewed twenty Rastafarians regarding their perspectives on white people and non-Rastas participating in reggae music.

On a particularly bright and sunny morning, my field assistant Sylvain and I left Ouagadougou on the moto to go to a small town in the brousse, where we were supposed to find a fiddle player. I was in Burkina Faso to research the prevalence of fiddles and their role in daily life here.

To celebrate and extend the discussions engendered by the peer-reviewed articles in Ethnomusicology Review Volume 19, the editors are pleased to offer responses to these articles by scholars working on related themes in music research. This submission by Amalia C.

 I recently returned from a trip to New South Wales, Australia for preliminary fieldwork. During my short trip, I sought to broaden my studies of indigenous music and cultural appropriation to include the interaction of Aboriginal and majority culture in Australia.

I travelled to The Gambia in the summer of 2012 to learn to play a stringed instrument called akonting, not knowing then that it would spark my current dissertation research.

As I left the Fair Grounds Race Course after my first day at the 2014 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, I heard the familiar sound of a brass band emanating from the corner of Fortin and Gentilly Street. There, in front of the headquarters of local radio station WBOK 1230 AM, the To Be Continued (TBC) Brass Band was playing for tips.

I appreciate that Notes From The Field is a spacewhere unedited reality merges with the polished academy. It is akin to the Real World for budding ethnomusicologists—edited and crafted for its audience, but never the less fairly raw, inclusive of drama, romance, heartbreak, comedy, and meaningful information.

From the field in Skopje, Macedonia

Applied ethnomusicology is making inroads towards recognition as a valued contribution within professional organizations beside traditional academic research and/or teaching careers. Its embrace by some organizations is reflected by publication opportunities dedicated to the topic and by active branches of members with this shared interest.

The post-World War II mass migration of communities from the Caribbean to England has had a tremendous impact on the cultural landscape of the United Kingdom. In my initial attempts to begin constructing an understanding of this impact, the perception that “tradition is not a static construct” and that “boundaries . . .