By Anna Bull

The National Graduate Conference for Ethnomusicology, held in September at the Institute of Musical Research in London, presented a diversity of approaches from current graduate students in ethnomusicology and related music disciplines. The conference was themed ‘Doing Ethnomusicology: implications and applications’ in anticipation of the Research Excellence Framework which will include an assessment of the impact of research.

Papers ranged from the more traditional end of ethnomusicology such as Jyoshna Joanne Latrobe’s detailed account of devotional singing in Bengal, India; to the technological such as Francis Ward’s virtual fieldwork examining the transmission of Irish traditional music through youtube and Skype; to the global such as Irfan Zuberi’s study of the commercialisation of khanquhi qawwali in India. Ethnomusicology ‘at home’ was also well represented in papers examining British pan performance, musical scenes in Chester, and religious music in London. Future directions of EM were also on the agenda. Caroline Bithell argued during the ‘professional trajectories’ roundtable that ethnomusicology is a growth discipline; certainly the broadness of its scope as seen at this conference will facilitate the future proliferation of ethnomusicologists in academia! And as Fiona Magowan argued during a lively final roundtable discussion on ‘ethnomusicology, activism and the public sphere’, the requirement to assess the ‘impact’ of research may affect EM as a discipline in unexpected ways, as the impact is difficult if not impossible to gauge before starting a piece of research.

Tia DeNora’s keynote speech provided another example of a discipline extending itself to ask old questions in new ways. DeNora is, of course, a sociologist, and her paper ‘Music’s Impact: Toward a Strongest Possible Case’, suggested ways in which the socio-cultural study of music can be a tool to explore questions of performing identities and ontological security. This paper was based on DeNora’s ongoing ethnography of community music therapy, asking how music can help develop transferable skills for the ‘presentation of self’.

As with the best conferences, the most stimulating intellectual discussion went on in the coffee breaks and in the pub. As someone migrating from an alien discipline (sociology), I was left wondering whether the fact that we were all studying the same cultural artefact, music, gave us enough in common to make a distinct discipline out of us. I explored this question during coffee-break discussions over ‘what is ethnomusicology?’ and ‘what’s the difference between ethnomusicology and musical anthropology?’, questions prompted by the diversity of approaches, research areas, and styles of research (if I can use so vague a term) in the papers presented.

I found it especially exciting to be in such a vibrant graduate student environment where we owned the space, allowing me to ask all manner of stupid questions. The organisers, Carolyn
Landau and Emma Brinkhurst, academic advisor Barley Norton, and indefatigable administrator Valerie James, did a superb job of organising the event and creating an open and welcoming space for us. Watch out for the next graduate student conference, which is scheduled for September 12 – 14, 2012.