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Archive for the ‘My Work’ Category

Embracing Randomness

In My Work on May 19, 2012 at 10:00 pm

As of late, an unlikely but inter-connected series of projects and pursuits have gotten me buried deep in all the things I really love to do. They’re community-based and local projects, I’m creating and executing research and business plans, making music and writing copy. Sometimes I look at my “To Do” list and think to myself how strange an wonderful to find such unlikely variety and unity across all the items.

Between now and the end of the year, I hope to share the results of the work that keeps me from writing too much for this blog. I am still writing, just in-progress and behind the scenes pieces that isn’t intended for public consumption. My plan is not linear, but interconnected in a way that makes it hard for me to articulate how they actually fit together. Perhaps I will write about the “eureka” moments that I experience (I have some in mind already from the interviews I’m doing for the Business of Music research). Perhaps from the random posts you will piece together a bigger picture of about what I’m working on.

The present is marked by feelings of excitement and anxiety and also of doubt as to whether I can actually make things happen; all the typical response we experience when we try something new. This feeling is familiar. I felt it on the first day I showed up for classes at the Faculty of Music, the first time I presented a paper at a conference, the first time I had to negotiate my wage. Right now, it also feels like a productive randomness, and I hope once I make some progress, I can look behind me and tell you retroactively what it was I was trying to do.

Until then, I will be busy embracing it.

BFE 2012

In My Work on May 3, 2012 at 2:37 pm

Greenwich UK
(Where did April go? A much belated post. More general update to come. Photo courtesy my cousin Paul, taken at Greenwich on the day the clock sprang forward.)

My trips to the UK for the British Forum of Ethnomusicology is turning into a bit of an annual pilgrimage. The attendees are from all parts of Europe and beyond, and it is three days of ideas, conversations, and mingling with an inspiring group of people. Technology makes reaching out to people around the world much easier, but nothing seems to beat just one face-to-face interaction in terms of establishing rapport, and connecting a voice and a face to a name.

One idea being kicked around as a result of the conference involves looking at the ethics of preserving and ‘returning’ ethnographic research data, as a way to start articulating the different concerns researchers have when deciding what to do with their research data. The common response is, of course they want to share my work, but there are fundamental economic and ethical considerations with no easy solution. Each researcher seem to be dealing with challenges that are specific to their circumstances, but it is probably useful to have a way of conceptualizing the problem into a framework that can be broadly applied. There were also related conversations about how to design a platform to solicit and disseminate research beyond papers, and encourage the use of multimedia in research publication.

All things close to my heart, even though the people that I’m connecting with may be geographically a little further away.

Bustling About

In My Work on March 6, 2012 at 12:54 pm

After a serious bout of spring cleaning at the office, the sun peaking out to suggest that days are getting longer, and a few well placed plants, I am getting an injection of inspiration and motivation. A few projects are brewing in my mind, and I’m really looking forward to sharing them with you once they are more presentable. They have to do with ‘music knowledge’ in a general sense, and helping people make connections with each other more specifically. I am looking forward to distilling the projects and ideas into a more refined form through conversations with a variety of people.

One such effort is my trek to attend the British Forum of Ethnomusicology later this month, which will be significantly more relaxed than my previous visits. I won’t be presenting a paper, but Kiku and I will have a ‘digital display’ of our on-going research on the transmission of shakuhachi online, building on what we had presented at the DIY Citizenship conference in Toronto. The next few weeks will be spent reviewing and editing some video footage, and producing the digital presentation and related collateral.

Now, let’s see if I work better with a clean space or a cluttered space.

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