Perhaps I should not be surprised, now that I have secured my “informant” for my ethnographic class, who is a flamenco guitar performer and teacher from a rich and unique musical heritage, that I am finding myself formulating the research program around the same theme. Narrowing down to a particular case study for the purpose of studying much broader concepts is both exciting and nerve wrecking, especially in preparation for a grant, as the nature of ethnographic work is that you don’t know what you’ll get. Not only that, the nature of logging descriptive data, if not focused by something like a user-centered design approach, could become quite unruly. I have already found myself sliding into ethnomusicology mode during field research without realizing it. (At least, I think I am.) In any case, this course is providing me an opportunity to flex my ethographic research muscles from the perspective of information research, and work out exactly this kind of kinks before I dive into my thesis work in May, whatever form that might take.
The transmission of flamenco guitar related knowledge in the context of my city of residence, Toronto, has the potential to be a very interesting case. I have identified a flamenco guitar studio (It’s not a big secret, but I won’t identify it just yet. I will say that they are a wonderful and enthusiastic subject!), that is founded on a strong flamenco guitar tradition that started in Spain, with a wide spectrum of implications in terms of performance technique, instrument construction, and cultural norms for music transmission just to name a few. It is especially interesting to study, as there is not a very strong presence of flamenco culture within the city, and how one ‘authenticates’what is being transmitted may be a sub-topic of interest as well. This small study I an conducting is going to be a great way for me to work out some of the basic research questions I have, although perhaps not soon enough for my liking in terms of prepping for the SSHRC deadline.
The grant is due in a couple of weeks, and I have just sent a draft of my materials to my two references. Once completed, it will go through an internal review at the University by our Faculty, who will then put it forward for consideration by endorsing it with a departmental appraisal. Whether I can get this grant or not, I suppose I will become a full time student in order to pursue the thesis which is the equivalent of 6 credits. The convoluted nature of the application process doesn’t leave much room for me to think about how it may be perceived, as I am mostly concerned about crossing all my Ts and dotting all my Is. Of course, the excitement of being able to explore and learn more about flamenco music as a result of this research is not entirely lost on me. All in good time.
What I am excited about is heading off to Vancouver in about 18 days. I won’t have much time to pack and think about it until a few days before I’m leaving, but I’m going to try and take it easy and not go too crazy with trying to see everything at the conference. Instead, socializing and learning from others through more personal means will be the goal. Besides, Vancouver is a beautiful city, and hopefully there’ll be a chance to drop by on some old friends and colleagues.
