Blog Post 8: Ethnography Status Update

My research for the ethnography is going well. Dallasopera.org will probably be one of my main sources because it has a lot of information on the history of the company, press releases, interviews and learning material. The interview aspect of my project has proven to be very difficult. Since I changed my ethnography topic relatively late, I haven't gotten email correspondence from a performer at The Dallas Opera. I might not be able to include that part in my final ethnography report. Instead, I will draw from interviews that The Dallas Opera have on their website. I wanted to find a source for statistics of Opera-goings like attendance levels over the years but it seems like there isn't a specific survey about that. If there is, please let me know!

Blog Post 7: Dallas Opera

I decided to change my topic for the music ethnography towards somewhere that had more live music so I can fulfill that requirement of the assignment. The music culture that I'm now studying is the Opera culture in the Dallas area. Opera is simply a drama play where the libretto, script of an opera, is mostly sung. There's usually instrumental aspects to operas ranging from a small ensemble to a full orchestra. Opera is usually performed in Opera houses which are theaters that have a stage, seating and an orchestra pit. Fans of opera usually go to live performances but lately the trend of streaming opera to theaters has grown.

The event I have been to was a live broadcast at my local AMC Theaters. I watched a NCM Fathom presentation of Verdi's Simon Boccanegra performed at the The Metropolitan Opera.

Since I am a technologist, I plan to focus on how the technology has drastically changed the music culture. I have a couple quick bullet-points for this aspect:

• Less social event.
• Smaller audience per movie theater.
• Nationwide participation.
• More convenient.
• Able to have different types of content (Interviews, commercials, etc.) before the show.
• Non-live experience. There's nothing like actually "being there."

Below is the Google trend graph for the keywords Dallas opera. I was looking to see if there's a downward or upward trend but it seems to be cyclical. I then queried the keyword opera to see if there was a trend with opera in general and it seems that it's mostly unchanging but the news results are steadily rising over the years.

[http://trends.google.com/trends?q=dallas+opera accessed March 5, 2010]

[http://trends.google.com/trends?q=opera accessed March 5, 2010]

Related Links:

The Metropolitan Opera

AMC Event Page

NCM Event Page

The Dallas Opera

Japanese Noh

I've found that Noh Classical Theater has several common elements:

• A Primary Performer that wears a kimono (a dress-like robe), a hakama (skirt), a white mask that shows different pronounced emotions. The performer also holds a fan or sword as his or her primary prop.
• Normally there are three musicians: A nohkan bamboo flutist, drum player(s), and a vocalist.
• The vocalist usually only sings the word "Noh" throughout the performance.
• In some performances, the tempo increases halfway through the piece. This is represented in the video below.

These aspects are echoed in the following video:

Japanese Culture Styling: Noh - 能 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUhtCLKFMx0

North Indian Classical Music

The video I choose to cover over North Indian classical music (Hindustani) is Ustad Rashid Khan performing Raag Desh. Like most classical North Indian music, there are string instruments called tamburas that provide a lot of drone which accompanies the main vocalist. There is also a drummer which plays with his palms and figures throughout most of the piece. There is a somewhat large section where the drummer does not play at all. I suspect it is the vocalist's solo at that time. The drum makes distinctively different notes and timbre depending on how it is played. Raag (or Raga) is the melodic mode which is used in Indian classical music. Desh is a Hindustani classical raga in which in the case of Arohana, 5 notes are used and in the case of Avarohana, 7 different notes are used throughout the piece. The vocalist also plays an interesting instrument that adds a sound similar to a harp to the performance. Throughout the piece, the strongest and most important voice from the group has to be the vocalist.

link to video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oz46DtJTEes

Blog Post 3: Music Faculty Concert

After attending the 40th annual music faculty concert on the coldest night we've had in a while, I headed out into the chilly night air with an ear-full of Latin music. The venue was full of discarded coats and jackets from the audience that filled the packed auditorium. The song I'm writing over is called How Insensitive by Antonio Carlos Sobim. The performers played piano, electric guitar, bass and drums. As the chatter slowly quieted down from the packed audience during setup for these songs, the pianist, Kelly Durbin started playing a solo. With many ornaments including trills and riffs. The guitar completes some of the piano's phrases and this leads off into a jazzy duet by the piano and electric guitar with the guitar part including a lot of legato articulation. The bass and bass drum kept a steady beat with hi-hat notes on the off beats. The middle gets very loud with a full band crescendo. The piano starts playing shorter notes and then the piece ends with a full band decrescendo and the guitar quietly fading. The audience cheers.

Blog Post 2: Ethnography Proposal

For my ethnography I was thinking of studying the local Thai scene. I'll do this by going to a Thai restaurant that I've been to before called Noodle Wave. This restaurant has a very distinct atmosphere that seemed to be very unique. The food, the music and the people all seemed to have an overall different feel than most restaurants. I believe there are currently two locations for this restaurant, so this restaurant is currently very localized.

http://www.noodlewave.com/

Musical Influence

I've grown up with a tentative connection to music but since I reached 6th grade in elementary school I've been interested. I know this because I started playing violin for half of a semester instead of my physical education class. This stopped as soon I reached reached middle school (7th grade) when I started band as a percussionist. This continued until I graduated high school from Poteet High School. Through band I've been introduced to many different types of music. Below is an embed of our show that earned us the title of winners of the 2005 U.I.L. 4A Texas state marching contest. A higher quality video can be seen from the official band website, here.

Percussion allowed me to play a large handful of instruments ranging from timpani to marimbas to snare drums to an assortment of obscure instruments. During marching season I primarily marched with cymbals but I was lucky enough my freshman year to be on the sidelines with something we call "the rack" which includes a wide variety of instruments that provided a large collection of timbre which presented not only a musical challenge but a logistical because we had a large amount of different sticks, mallets and instruments that me and one other person had to shuffle around throughout our 7 minute performance. You would not believe how hard it was to do a thumb roll on a tambourine with a crescendo while being drenched with rain. If you watched this close up it truly was an art.

In addition to the marching band culture, band also gave me a view of more classical music during concert season which required a U.I.L. solo, ensemble, and countless full band performances and contests every year. Furthermore, being part of the percussion also allowed me to be a part of our annual percussion ensemble concert which was very challenging, rewarding and fun. Below is a performance of "Karn Evil 9." This is a good example of the types of performances that our percussion took on.

In regard to my more personal taste in music, I have learned toward a more alternative rock style which focus on an interesting story, but I'm not usually an active listener to music, which is something that I think I should change. I did have to actively listen during my time in high school but since that time I haven't used that skill hardly as much as I would like.