recently, i’ve been working on a paper for a panel with a few friends from back in chicago, who have a common post-grad school experience of working with and teaching artists. here at the berklee college of music, i’ve been teaching musicians. i also work closely with songwriters in my fieldwork. the perilous intersections of our practices thus keeps me thinking, whether at berklee or in taitung

最近收到芝加哥同學的邀請，參加一個關於藝術跟人類學的交叉點的小研討會，收邀請的同學，都有畢業後的共同點：我們在教學和研究上，跟藝術家的接觸頗多，比如，我的研究跟歌手有關，同時在伯克李音樂學院任教，所以人類學研究實踐如何接近作曲家的實踐，成為我的研究的對象之一。我深深感到，歌手和人類學學者，應該有很多的話題可以聊，更進一步說，我們互相學習的空間，顯者很大。要如何實現人類學和作曲的對話？這也是值得探討的問題

i’m convinced that songwriters and ethnographers have a great deal to talk about and to learn from each other. figuring out how to facilitate this conversation has become one of my questions as i teach and do research

i have three basic areas where i think this conversation could occur, drawing from the practices of songwriters:
restraint, registration, and response

by restraint, i mean both a kind of reticence and an ability to keep within the boundaries imposed by genre, form, and voice. songwriters, unless named gordon lightfoot, have to capture an entire social situation through fragments of conversation or powerful images. their art depends on attentiveness and a kind of restraint through which they keep from saying too much

by registration, i mean the exploration of different social worlds through registering these worlds in sonic traces, particularly in a register that allows the songwriter to embody a perspective from that world

response refers to work that does not represent or even describe another social world but that provides a personal reflection, in which the songwriter leaves space for the listener to register this world without attempting to contain or speak for the Other. I’d like to explore this area more, as it seems to provide an avenue for deeper conversations between songwriters and anthropologists. see the attached pdf or listen to the podcast of my talk, “alone of the beach? intersections of anthropology and songwriting”

restraint
在作曲時，歌手受到樂種，形式，以及語態 （或聲音）的種種限制，所以歌手需要利用最簡明的詞描述社會形態或詮釋人際關係，他們節用文字，以對話的碎片和歷史的殘跡，觸摸一種可以充滿一整本書的故事，歌手的厲害，一方面來自他們的注意力，另外一方面也是歌手的restraint所形成的。

registration同時有語域，層次，以及和刻記的意味，歌手經常會採用一個聲音（即語域或語言的層次），而這個聲音可以當作歌手在探討，詮釋社會的工具，採用的不通語域，使得一首歌再現自我和異己之間的對話。

第三個交叉點response最值得探討，跟人類學家不同，歌手雖可以採用一個語域代表異己，不過他們經常不站在代表或分析異己的平台上；其採用的語域，卻讓一首歌說出一個回應，一個呼喚。這種回應並不將異己容納於自己的論述，也不敢為了異己說話，反而，回應性的作品會打開一個空間，在這個空間裡，聽眾可以體會到一個默默無聲或者未曾聽過的存在所給與我們的影響和衝擊，這種回應，使得聽眾恭敬地面對異己。

比如說，suming的pakaoraday a mapunengay a fayi的靈感的確來自都蘭部落的傳統祈雨祭典，不過曲調，歌詞，等並沒有代表，而更沒有模仿傳統祈雨祭典音樂，suming的歌也不會刻意為了祈雨的夫人述說，所以pakaoraday a mapunengay a fayi在詮釋祈雨祭典時，沒有採用古調新編的方式，卻是suming面對此祭典的個人回應，一個站在阿美族青年的立場，關注阿美族歷史和現在的對話….

想看更多嗎？論文的pdf，敬請指教！

pdf of “alone on the beach? intersections of anthropology and songwriting”