Professional Documents
Culture Documents
2 Theoretical Frame
Media channels are crucial in all aspects of music making. They regulate contact
and access to other musicians, organizers, funders, and fans. Musicians in Beirut
receive information on the latest trends in their specific niche music genres faster
than ever before. Whereas in the 1990s metal albums were imported through the
port of Kaslik, or brought in by friends or family members by plane, today's
musicians can listen to their favorite music from abroad via the Internet. Their
knowledge about music and their production and distribution strategies show clearly
how closely music making is connected through media worldwide. That Lebanon
still has one of the slowest Internet speed rates worldwide does not derogate this
fact. Many of the Beiruti musicians download all possible tracks from their favorite
sites the moment they step into a zone with fast wireless Internet access abroadI
observed this many times. Their musics become media products, fixed on CD, LP,
or cassette, or as media files (e.g., WAV, MP3). These media products include
cover images (with pictures, fonts, and graphic design), titles, logos, and
descriptions.
Further, video clips, remixes, posters, websites, promotion pictures, and interviews
appear on a diversity of old and new media ranging from newspapers and
magazines to blogs, SoundCloud, and YouTube. They are not side products of the
music; rather, they intensify its aesthetical approach and vision (in the best cases),
and they help promote both music and musician. Similar to concert performances
and DJ sets in front of audiences, these media products can be defined as
transnational media performances. These performances include all elements of
Christofer Jost's definition of media as: carriers and transmitters of data (and
information); as technical means of communication; as means to create standing;
as technical dispositions; and as independent outdifferentiated systems of function
(2011:7). Furthermore, they fit Rolf Grossmann's definition of musicians, which
focuses not on traditional instruments, but on the laptop as an increasingly
important device for many (if not all) tasks. Grossmann highlights the changes
laptop culture brought to music: It is a new mode of musicianship: fusing self-
research, composition, innovation, performance and distribution in a single
technological device connected to digital networks (2008:9). Many of the musicians
in this book combine multiple activities; they are producers, interpreters, activists,
historians, salesmen, and networkers and many of them own an up-to-date
laptop, either PC or Mac.
I use the term platform whenever I speak of where these media products appear:
on a local stage in Beirut, on an international stage in London, on a media platform
like SoundCloud or YouTube, or in a computer game. Possibilities are huge
certainly new platforms open up at the moment of writing. With their media
products, musicians perform on several of these platforms simultaneously. They
trim their media products to fitor they challenge consumption on these platforms.
Similar to concert performances, where musicians reflect on effective set lists or
announcements, they perform strategically (and more and less knowledgeably) on
various local and transnational platforms. It is the musicians' strategic use of these
platforms that I intend to research. Plus I try to show the interrelation between the
production of media products and the reception on these possible platforms.
German media and pop scholar Christoph Jacke (2009:144) splits pop music into
four main domains: production, distribution, reception, and further processing. This
book is divided along these lines: Parts II and III deal primarily with production and
distribution, whereas Part V focuses on reception and further processing. The
domain production includes motives of musicians and producers. It looks at the
production processes and at the aesthetics of production. It does further highlight
economical aspects. The domain distribution observes the role of public relations
(PR), advertising, and the impact of media channels (e.g., TV channels, radio
stations, blogs). It looks at distribution processes and at aesthetics of distribution.
The domain reception looks at the various groups of recipients and their motives
and reception aesthetics. The domain further processing observes all the further,
often nonmusical, appearances of a specific media product.
I work with a broad definition of music thatbesides melody, rhythm, and pitch
includes noise(s), the sonic, and sound. The approach is linked to sound studies,
which assume that the sound characteristics of a track lead into the middle of music
making as a process of action, communication, and meaning (see Binas 2008:11).
In sound, we hear the contradictory aesthetical, social, and economical interests
and possibilities of the actors involved with the production. By working on sound,
we come to the crossroads between the cultural, the social, and the aesthetical.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS:
MULTISITED AVANTGARDES OR WORLD MUSIC 2.0?
From my experience, interview data collected with musicians and the analysis of
their media products often reveal different results. It is this gap between empirical
data and the actual analysis of the media products that needs to be filled. My main
research questions keep the media products of these musicians from Beirut at the
center of interest:
Which musical and nonmusical spheres of influence affect the music making of
these musicians from Beirut?
How do these spheres of influence affect them: Are they binding and inspiring, or do
they offer positioning options or playing opportunities?
How do these interactions between these various spheres of influence become
inscribed in their media products?
Approaching music in this way shows that many actors with different policies,
strategies, and knowledge are involved in the process of music making (Jacke
2009:144).
The paramount question is: Are these musicians and media products able and
allowed to create vanguard musical positions? Do they help cocre-ate, push, and
promote concepts of multisited modernities? These emerge polycentrically and
challenge old readings of modernity as Euromodernity and Euro-American
modernity (Grossberg 2010). Thus, do these media products in fact hold
revolutionary meanings?
I discuss these paramount questions from a Euro-American perspective. Yet, they
are important for the musicians in Beirut, tooas I experienced during fieldwork.
These musicians work with similar musical material, aesthetical approaches, and
techniques as musicians in Europe and the US. Many musicians highlight musical
similarities, and focusing on musical differences is far less evident. Their aim is to
compete internationally. They search for recognition within their transnational niche
networks and desire to be trendy, contemporary, hip, or create Zeitgeist.
Accordingly, they want to be analyzed and even criticized through Euro-American
perspectives as well. Trumpet player Mazen Kerbaj confirmed this several times, in
various interviews. He aspires to reach international recognition; to be the best free
trumpet player in Beirut is not enough:
To be able to compete internationally is what is most important to me. Not because
it is better outside, but because abroad I can play in front of an audience that has
experienced free improvised music for many years. To play abroad is the real test! I
hate it when Lebanese are so overconfident. Often they are very happy and proud
too early. Once, a Lebanese friend and me went to see a Lebanese saxophone
player. After the concert, I was very angry; it was the worst saxophone player I had
ever heard. My friend answered, Yes, but for a Lebanese, he was good. This is
what I hate; this makes me almost vomit. It's like admitting that we Lebanese are
just a bunch of shits. I really hope this will changeand this is one of the reasons
we want to compete internationally and prove ourselves. Consequently, I measure
these musicians between two overall concepts and traditions: One is avant-garde
that I here call multisited avant-garde to imply that it is not Euro-American
exclusively. The other is World Music 2.0. Whenever using the term multisited
avant-garde in the analysis, I argue that these musicians create new vanguard
positions. When using World Music 2.0, I imply that they are still being pushed to
fulfill expectations and adapt to the worldview of Euro- American producers and
audiences and thus offer World Music 2.0, simply an updated version of the
limiting world music (1.0).
3 Methodological Approach
MULTISITED ETHNOGRAPHY
This book works with approaches of multisited ethnography (Marcus 1995). Its
claim that local culture is always configured from transnational contexts is crucial in
this analysis. Multisited ethnography not only describes a specific lifestyle from a
local perspective, but it also tries to understand the bigger political, economical, and
cultural frame that influences local life and work. Many of the points mentioned in
the two editions of the book Shadows in the Field are inspiring, for example, the
approaches virtual fieldwork by Cooley, Meizel, and Syed and Internet
Ethnography (2008:90107). Researching via the Internet, discussing questions
and articles via e-mail, and following the bands via Facebook became important
whenever I was not in the field. I constantly observe the musicians (and their media
representations). This keeps my research up-to-date. I can even see with whom the
musicians network and what they discuss, and this generates new research
questions. I keep in mind that online performances on Facebook are very specific,
and I would even argue that they are simply valuable data, when discussed with the
musiciansor at least with other actors in the field.
MAIN PERSPECTIVES: MUSICIAN, MUSIC, MEDIA PRODUCT
ETHNOGRAPHIC FIELDWORK
The main data of this long-term study derive from several pieces of field research in
Beirutthe main ones were conducted in 2005 and 2006, when I lived in Beirut.
Smaller ones I conducted in short research trips (between one and three weeks)
between 2001 and 2011. I used some of the methodological approaches of
grounded theory (Strauss and Corbin 1996). Basically, grounded theory enables us
to put forward far-ranging theses without ignoring the complexity, inconsistency, and
process-oriented nature of human (and artist) behavior and strategies. To approach
musicians in Beirut as closely as possible, I used a set of qualitative research
methods: different forms of interviews (structured, semi-structured, informal/theme-
based, biographical/with single informants or groups); participant observation; and
systematic observation (Beer 2003:119; Hauser-Schublin 2003:33) of the
musicians in their daily life and during concerts. I focused on many actors of
different age-groups working in or around the field of music in Beirut. All in all, I met
and interviewed around one hundred musicians; composers; scholars
(musicologists, ethnomusicologists, and social anthropologists); music producers
(record producers, festival and concert organizers); media people (journalists and
editors); members of arts councils (from different international institutions); and
music lovers. Further, I observed their activities in numerous settings: from
international music festivals in Baalbek, Beiteddine, and Byblos, to club concerts in
the trendy Beirut areas of Gemmayzeh and Hamra, to rehearsal sessions in small
cellars or in big villas. My aim in meeting that many actors was to become as well
informed about the Lebanese context as possible. This became increasingly
important the more I met the key musicians. Most of them I met several times in
different constellations. The intention was to slowly bring the discussion to the
deeper levels of music making and to sensitive issues like their childhood in war. To
do so, I needed a lot of knowledge on the local context so I could ask and re-ask
the right questions. Often, the interviews and discussions went on for many hours.
After one meeting, Charbel Haber told me that he had never talked so much and
never given an interview that was that longwe had discussed music for nearly five
hours. It took Raed Yassin and me five hours to go through his piece CW Tapes
for the first time.
Two of the main decisions this book is based upon call for a rather special
approach to music analysis. The first decision was to work cross-culturally and to
use emic and ethic criteria to analyze and describe music. The second decision
was to focus on a generation of musicians (born during the Lebanese Civil War)
instead of a specific musical style: rap, rock, metal, MBM, free improvisation, or
electronic music, for example. One minor problem is that we cannot transcribe the
variety of musical styles similarly. In most of the cases, I thus create tables with
timelines of specific musical events, and I describe in written text specifics such as
which chords are played, what scale is used, and so forth. I use the classical form
of notation in the track Aranis only. The problem with notation and transcriptions
remains that they can show only a glimpse of the actual musical phenomena.
Furthermore, the moment a musicologist applies a traditional notation, the social
scientist and the untrained reader are excluded from discussion. The major
difficulty, however, was (and is) that I am not an expert in all the musical styles that I
focus on in this book. Having played clarinet in a music school and saxophone at
the Swiss Jazz School of Bern (and in some local bands) for quite a while makes
me understand more about jazz and free improvised music than about metal music.
Today, I further perform in audiovisual performance projects, and I sometimes DJ.
This gives me some knowledge of live electronics. I further use various software
programs to edit and manipulate sounds for radio features and podcasts.
To gain more knowledge across the various music styles, I decided to conduct a
small reception test. I sent these metal, rap, rock, free improvisation, and electronic
music tracks to thirty listeners in Europe, the US, and the Arab world. Most of them
were musicians, ethnomusicologists, musicologists, and music journalists. They
knew neither that this music was from Beirut nor the names of the musicians. In this
book, I include only small parts of their answers. However, I used their comments
within my research: to ask different and new questions to the musicians, or to
discuss certain criticisms.
The book Rock in the Reservation Songs from the Leningrad Rock Club 198186
by Yngvar Bordewich Steinholt (2005) inspired this reception test. Steinholt adapted
a reception test by Philip Taggsee Music Analysis for Non-musos (Tagg 2001:9
14) for his study. In his book, he asks amateur musicians to listen to four pieces of
music, and he edits and adds their comments in his analysis chapter. With his
reception test, Steinholt further aims to achieve the same goals as I do: He states
that the feedback of the listeners would cover a sufficient basis on how the bands
from Leningrad use and combine Western musical styles and to which extent
their recontextualisation of rock styles creates particular local styles (Steinholt
2005:12).
This setting is challenging. The ideal is to get a multisited ethnography and to
receive results that show the complexities of musicians' actions in today's
globalized and digitalized world. I need this highly abstract yet flexible theoretical
and methodological framework in order to approach, read, and make thick
descriptions (in the sense of Geertz 1987) of very specific examples in music
practice. In this manner, I wish to fulfill the fundamental requirement of popular
music researcher Binas-Preisendrfer. She argues that a scientific exploration of
the musical phenomena in a modern globalized and mediated world demands both
reflexive theoretical concepts as well as very specific, small-scale studies
(2010:103).
One aim of this book is thus to propose a way of analyzing music in today's
globalized and digitized world. This analysis should be close to the musicians and
the music, but it should not ignore power balances and realities on the cultural
markets.
I try to apply this proposition, working with the following hypothesis: Music making
in an increased digitalized and globalized world is influenced more than ever by
both virtual transnational trends and phenomena and by local musical and
nonmusical spheres of influence. Contemporary music analysis has thus to link
analysis of music (and music performance) with cultural and social studies and
collect data in transnational contexts.