Learning to Perform as a Research Technique in Ethnomusicology

Author(s): John Baily

Source: British Journal of Ethnomusicology , 2001, Vol. 10, No. 2 (2001), pp. 85-98
Published by: British Forum for Ethnomusicology

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3060663

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JOHN BAILY

Learning to perform as a research

technique in ethnomusicology*

This article starts with a brief discussion of Hood's notion of bi-musicality and
considers several reports in the literature of learning to perform as a research
technique. The author's experiences of learning to play dutar and rubab in
Afghanistan during the 1970s are described in some detail. The article con-
cludes with a discussion of the many advantages of learning to perform as part
of the fieldwork enterprise.

Mantle Hood's article "The challenge of bi-musicality" was a source of inspi-

ration to many contemplating ethnomusicological research in the 1960s. I first
came across his paper in 1968 as a postgraduate student in experimental
psychology at Sussex University. Having just discovered ethnomusicology in
the form of Bruno Nettl's Theory and Method in the university library, it was
exciting to find that ethnomusicology had this practical dimension as well as
more orthodox modes of scholarship.
Hood did not advocate learning to perform as a technique to be employed in
ethnomusicological fieldwork. His argument was simply that training in basic
musicianship is fundamental to any kind of musical scholarship.

The training of ears, eyes, hands and voice and fluency gained in these skills
assure a real comprehension of theoretical studies, which in turn prepares
the way for the professional activities of the performer, the composer, the
musicologist and the music educator.
(Hood 1960:55)

Hood argued that the student of non-Western music should not bypass basic
musicianship in the music culture in question, and specifically mentioned
acquiring the capacity to hear intervals correctly and developing memory span

* This article was originally published in Lux Oriente. Begegnungen der Kulturen in der
Musikforschung, a Festschrift for Robert Giinther edited by Klaus Wolfgang Niemller,
Uwe Patzold and Chung Kyo-chul, and published by Gustav Bosse Verlag in 1995. The
Editors of BJE have decided to reprint this important article without change in order to
ensure its wider dissemination, and they wish to thank Gustav Bosse Verlag for permission
so to do. Only one addition has been made to the references, the notations of naghmahci-ye
kashcal published in Baily (1997).

BRITISH JOURNAL OF ETHNOMUSICOLOGY VOL. 10/ii 2001 pp. 85-98

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86 BRITISH JOURNAL OF ETHNOMUSICOLOGY VOL.10/ii 2001

in learning pieces aurally. His paper described the intricacies

Asian art music genres (Javanese and Balinese gamelan and gag
drumming) from the practical point of view, and provided am
the importance of learning to move properly in relation to th
produce the correct sounds. All these examples were drawn from
available for practical study in the Institute for Ethnomusicology
In retrospect, certain questions might well be raised about
bi-musicality (with a hyphen), modelled as it obviously is on the w
(without a hyphen). Bilingual simply means "1. Having, or ch
two languages 1862. 2. spec. Of inscriptions, etc.: Inscribed sim
parallel versions in two languages" (The Shorter Oxford Engli
1968). But applied to verbal behaviour the term bilingual sug
fluency in two languages, especially when acquired together i
hood, before the age of about five. By analogy, Hood's implied ter
suggests an individual who as a child has become fluent as a pe
distinct musics. Hood certainly accepts this notion, for he quotes
writing about gagaku court musicians of Japan:

[They] have undergone rigid training since child-hood, not only in

dances and instrumental techniques, but also in the performance
music of the Classical period. In their capacity as official court
they are required to perform both Gagaku and Western classical m
(Garfias 1959, quoted in Hood 1960)

Nevertheless, Hood extended the term bi-musicality to cover the

ability in a second music culture later than childhood. The st
who faced the "challenge of bi-musicality" certainly did so during
as undergraduate and graduate students in music - i.e. as youn
children.
Further interesting questions are raised by the term bi-musicality. Familiar
problems soon arise concerning the "distance" between two kinds of music for
the word to be applicable. What about the person who combines competence
in European art music and rock music? Baroque music and Minimalism?
North and South Indian art musics? Hood clearly recognized the terminologi-
cal problems that appear with people who are competent in three, four, or even
more "musics", and ended up suggesting that it is all basically a question of
"musicality". To avoid these terminological problems, I propose not to overuse
the term bi-musicality but will speak of "learning to perform".
The art of ethnomusicological fieldwork was less developed at the time when
Hood introduced the notion of bi-musicality, and from present perspectives one
might argue more specifically that learning to perform should be a crucial part of
research methodology because of the potential insights it provides into musical
structure. The argument here is that only as a performer does one acquire a
certain essential kind of knowledge about music. Learning to perform has quite
a long history in ethnomusicology. In 1934 A. M. Jones tackled the problem of
African rhythm, which Hornbostel (1928) had described as "syncopated beyond
belief". Jones argued that to understand the apparent complexity of African

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BAILY Learning to perform as a research technique in ethnomusicology 87

rhythm one must "join an African band and learn to take one's part". Once
that step is taken one discovers that "the apparent inextricable complexity" of
African rhythms is false. The individual parts are perfectly simple:

It is the combination of these simple rhythms that makes the glorious

African harmony, which to the listener often sounds beyond analysis. In this
field a phonograph is useless.
(Jones 1934)

John Blacking was another of a long list of students of African music who
extended the idea of learning to perform as a technique of field research. Three
examples come to mind from his Venda fieldwork. First, Blacking learned to
sing children's songs:

I decided to begin my general study of Venda music with a detailed study

of the children's songs. I thought that it would be a good plan to learn
Venda music by the same process as the Venda themselves, and that by
singing children's songs I might also improve my pronunciation and vocab-
ulary of the Venda language. My pronunciation was never very good,
however, but I found that my subsequent ability to sing the children's songs
correctly was a great asset in establishing friendly relations in areas where I
was not known.

(Blacking 1967:28)

My teachers were patient and insisted on correcting my mistakes, so that I

began to learn what was expected of a singer and what tolerances were
allowed. I learnt the songs both from adults and from children. On some
occasions I made deliberate mistakes, and was therefore especially inter-
ested if I was not corrected: this would mean that I had sung an alternative
melody which, though not that which my teacher knew, was perfectly
acceptable according to the canons of Venda music.
(Blacking 1967:33)

Second, Blacking participated in Venda possession trance sessions as a

drummer:

The effectiveness of the music depends on the context in which it is both

performed and heard. But ultimately it depends on the music, as I found out
once when I was playing one of the drums. Dancers take turns coming out
into the "arena", and at first there were no complaints about my efforts. Very
soon, however, a senior lady began dancing, and she was expected to go into
a trance because the music was being played for her cult group. However,
after a few minutes she stopped and insisted that another drummer should
replace me! She claimed that I was ruining the effect of the music by "hurry-
ing" the tempo -just enough, I suppose, to inhibit the onset of trance.
(Blacking 1973:44-5)'

I Blacking later modified his ideas about the role of music in inducing spirit possession
along the lines suggested by Gilbert Rouget (1985).

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88 BRITISH JOURNAL OF ETHNOMUSICOLOGY VOL.10/ii 2001

Third, Blacking sometimes participated in tshikona, the nationa

Venda:

By joining the dance, I was able to experience what the Venda claimed: to
play one's part in the pipe melody correctly whilst moving in harmony with
others in a large crowd of performers and spectators, generates individuality
in community, and so combines self with others in a way that is funda-
mental to the existence of Venda culture and society ... The experience was
often ecstatic: not only did we dance; we were sometimes danced.
(Blacking 1977:38)

Further insights into Blacking's ideas about learning to perform are pro-
vided in a letter he sent me in May 1972. I had written to him about my interest
in ethnomusicology, in Hood's notion of bi-musicality (was the idea "still in
fashion"?), and my proposal to study Persian classical music. He replied:

Far from being out-of-date, learning to perform and play music is a basic
field technique in ethnomusicology. We are still trying to establish it as a
necessary methodological tool, because several field studies are being
carried out without it even today...
However, I am not too happy about your plan to study under "masters of
the tar" [double-chested long-necked lute] in Teheran ... I do not think it at
all necessary for you to learn how to play the instrument superbly (which
would involve intensive study with one or two players, as you suggest),
unless you plan to become a concert artist. But I do think it very necessary
for you to discover how the average tar player learns and transmits his
skills, by spending some time with several different players both in the
cities and rural areas. If I were going to make a special study of Irish
fiddling, I would not first take a course at the Belfast or Dublin academies
of music; I would take lessons with Tommy Gunn and others who have and
follow "folk theories" of music. This would tell me much more about the
cultural realities and deep structures of the music than the sophisticated
teaching of the academies...
I am assuming that you plan to become an ethnomusicologist first, and
a tar player second, third, or fourth. If I am wrong, what I have said will
be irrelevant.
(Baily 1994:5-6)

Learning to perform Afghan music

I did study music in Tehran, when I was working as an English teacher there in
1973, and not the tOr but the sehtar, for several months with Dariush Tala'i
and Jamshid Zolfonun. I found it very difficult, especially rhythmically. One
cannot play avaz without a good knowledge of Persian poetry. My subsequent
attempts to learn to play Afghan music were altogether more useful and reward-
ing. In order to examine the challenge of bi-musicality in more detail I give
some account of my experiences in learning to perform on two Afghan instru-

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BAILY Learning to perform as a research technique in ethnomusicology 89

ments, the dutdr, a term used for several kinds of long-necked pyriform lute, and
the rubab, a short-necked lute. Most of my work was carried out in the city of
Herat, in western Afghanistan, over a two-year period between 1973 and 1977.
I started to learn the three-stringed dutdr when working in Tehran. I paid
a brief visit to Herat, recorded three amateur dutdr players, observed their
performance techniques closely and purchased a dutbar. Back in Tehran I tran-
scribed some of the music and practised playing along with the recordings.
Later I discovered that this was not altogether unlike the traditional way of
learning the dutdr - that is, by imitation, watching someone closely and later
trying to reproduce what has been observed. Most dutatr players claimed to be
self-taught, and were proud of being so. They were reluctant to acknowledge
their betters, saying "Well, if I'm no better than X, then I am no worse than
him either". All of this affirmed their shauqi (amateur) status. One big differ-
ence between us was that, whereas they knew the tunes they learned to play by
hearing them as part of their urban soundscape, I needed the tape recorder to
create an aural score from which I could learn to play.
When I began my fieldwork proper in the autumn of 1973, I started
learning the fourteen-stringed dutdr with one of the leading exponents of the
instrument, Gada Mohammad, originally an amateur who later turned profes-
sional. In retrospect I see that my fieldwork was focused from the start on
performance; my first step was to find a teacher as that was the way in. As I
have said, dutdr players were generally self-taught, though players like Gada
Mohammad undoubtedly learned a great deal later in their playing careers
from the hereditary professional musicians (sdtzandeh) with whom they regu-
larly worked in urban bands (singer with harmonium, tabla, rubdb and dutdr).
Gada had picked up a lot from his band leader, Amir Mohammad, a singer
from Kabul resident in Herat. For example, Amir Mohammad had taught him
to play shakl, the introductory section in free rhythm (cf. taqsim, Bldtp), in a
number of rdgs (melodic modes), and Gada had written these combinations
down using Indian sargam notation. Unlike most professional musicians, he
was fully literate.
Gada used to come regularly to my house. In the early days I paid him.
Later on, when we became good friends, this was no longer appropriate.
Certainly the learning process was under my control. In our first two sessions
I recorded a number of items from his large repertory so that I could choose
pieces I wanted to learn. I then worked alone with Gada's dutdr, which he lent
me while I had my own instrument constructed, trying to work them out. Once
we had two dutdrs we were able to play together - he leading, I following,
phrase by phrase. He had no trouble in repeating particular phrases, a signifi-
cant fact. Sometimes I recorded these lessons. He would also make recordings
of the pieces I was trying to learn, played slowly and simply. Both kinds of
recordings were labelled "Teaching Material" in my fieldnotes and tape cata-
logues. I found my task difficult and frustrating. The fourteen-stringed dutdr is
a large and rather cumbersome instrument, difficult to hold in the proper play-
ing position without tiring. In retrospect, I also see that I was trying to start
with what to outsiders would be the most difficult part of the dutar repertory,

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90 BRITISH JOURNAL OF ETHNOMUSICOLOGY VOL. 10/ii 2001

the genre called chahdarbeiti, the melodies for the singing of qua
rhythm, a rhythmic problem like that posed by Iranian ivdz.
The fact that I used a tape recorder to record these demonstrat
unprecedented in Herat, where the radio/cassette machine was
in the early 1970s. For example, Gada had a friend, Abdul G
helped by teaching new pieces. I had the opportunity to obser
session" once. Abdul Ghani, an amateur musician with a job as
civil service, got Gada to play a number of pieces, either suggeste
or volunteered by Gada. When Gada played something he lik
to learn he switched on the tape recorder, and accompanied
zirbaghali (pottery goblet drum). What he was doing was reco
tunes that he wanted to learn by ear from the tape, just as I did.
I continued practising the three-stringed dutdr throughout my
fieldwork and recorded many Herati musicians playing the in
also able to recreate an earlier version of the dutdr, whic
(or nylon) strings and an idiosyncratic system of fretting, giving
certain neutral second intervals (Baily 1976:32). I had to r
distinctive performance technique, particularly for the right han
the bare fingers and thumb rather than a plectrum. This instrum
out of favour in about 1950, to be replaced by the three-strin
with metal strings and played with the metal thimble-plectrum o
tanbur (Baily 1976:60). Familiarity with the three kinds of d
important insights into how performance techniques had cha
successive morphological transformations of the instrument (B
A second instrument I learned to play in Afghanistan was
rubab, a double-chested, short-necked plucked lute with drone an
strings. In 1973 I had an opportunity to start learning the ru
Mohammad Omar, one of the outstanding musicians of mid-twen
Afghanistan. Originally a vocalist, trained in Hindustani mus
deputed to become principal rubab player at Radio Kabul wh
incumbent (Ghurban Ali) retired. I attended his regular class for
cians, which was held during late afternoons in the guest room o
the musicians' quarter (Kucheh Kharabat) of Kabul.
This provided what I later realized was an excellent insight into
Ustad's musical activities. His training of amateurs was very d
experienced by male children brought up in sdazandeh heredi
families. Typically, the class consisted of eight to twelve stud
stages of progress. Ustad Mohammad Omar took each pupil in
listen to what the pupil was working on, comment, and, if ap
another composition. He taught by sargam notation, speakin
the names of the notes. The pupil wrote them down and then
them from the written notation. He also demonstrated pieces
and explained technical problems like right-hand stroke pat
recorders were allowed in Ustad Mohammad Omar's class! Th
was informal but very respectful. Pupils would arrive and depart
while to observe the teaching of the others. In this way, and

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BAILY Learning to perform as a research technique in ethnomusicology 9]

period, Ustad Mohammad Omar taught me two complete compositions of the

naghmeh-ye kashdl (extended instrumental piece) type, in Rdg Bairami and
Rdg Yemen, regarded as the two basic melodic modes by Afghan musicians.
Once I had started my fieldwork in Herat in the autumn I hardly saw Ustad
Mohammad Omar again and received no more teaching. He did not approve of
my studying the Herati dutar, which he considered too close to Iranian music
and the domain of "opium smokers". I took no lessons for rubab in Herat dur-
ing that first year of fieldwork, but I made "test recordings"2 of several rubab
players, including the outstanding virtuoso Rahim Khushnawaz. Some of his
recordings have now been released on CD (Baily 1993), including examples of
mahali (local "folk" music), naghmeh-ye kashdl (extended instrumental piece),
and naghmeh-ye kldsik (classical instrumental piece).3 I continued practising
the rubab. Back in Belfast in 1974 for a long period of data analysis and report
writing, I put in a lot of time transcribing and analysing these recordings
and trying out the results on the instrument. As a result, I was able to attain
a certain degree of proficiency and also to look at the problems encountered
when one tries to transfer rubab pieces to the dutdr and vice versa.
In 1975 I paid a six-week visit to Herat and started lessons with Amir Jan,
father of the above-mentioned Rahim Khushnawaz whose recordings I had
been working on. Amir Jan was the outstanding master musician in Herat at
that time, a singer and harmonium player with a good knowledge of Kabuli and
Indian art music, as well as mahali and kiliwali (popular music). He had previ-
ously refused to take me on as a student, probably due to the (well-grounded)
fear that too much contact with a foreigner, even one with a research permit
issued in Kabul, might arouse the unwelcome attentions of the police. The cir-
cumstances of the breakthrough merit some description.
I was invited to a musical soiree at Amir Jan's house, a guest evening for
friends and patrons, when he and his family played for their guests' entertain-
ment. Late on, and after playing a solo naghmeh-ye kldsik in Rdg Bihag on the
rubab, Amir Jan asked me to take the instrument, remarking to the gathering
that I was the student of Ustad Mohammad Omar. Knowing the protocol I
declined, saying that I could not play "in front of him". He was delighted with
this evidence of understanding and sensitivity to the local culture, and persisted
with his request.4 I finally capitulated and played a piece I had learned from a
recording of his son Rahim, a naghmeh-ye kldsik in Rdg Puria Kalydn. It went
down well. The success of this performance in a sense endorsed the results of
my efforts, based on the initial training by Ustad Mohammad Omar and then
on recordings and transcriptions of recorded rubab performances. Rahim was
not there or he might have pointed out the source of the composition, not that

2 The term "test recording" signifies a recording made out of context for the purposes of
collecting a performance of a specific item for transcription and analysis. This contrasts with
the "in-context recording", made of a performance which occurs without consideration as to
whether it will be recorded or not by the fieldworker.
3 Further information about these genres can be found in Baily (1988:66-80).
4 I later observed that failure to ask permission of the senior musician present before playing
could lead to long-term disputes and disagreements.

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92 BRITISH JOURNAL OF ETHNOMUSICOLOGY VOL.10/ii 2001

it would necessarily have made a significant difference. Following this su

I visited Amir Jan a number of times and he taught me about what h
Rdg Todi.5 He showed me some shakl combinations, fixed composition
meh) and some quasi-improvised melodic passages called paltas.
revealed certain specialities of right-hand technique, such as playing
(Baily 1987, 1991).
These lessons continued in 1976-77, during my second year's fieldw
Herat. Amir Jan was officially recognized as my teacher by the Herati of
the Ministry for Information and Culture. I had to take him there for off
reassure him that I had the necessary permits from Kabul and he would n
put in jeopardy. I now set out to learn the repertoire of naghmehd -ye kash
"extended instrumental pieces", which constitute a corpus of material of
interest. They are played as solo items on rubab and other instruments, a
group instrumental pieces as overtures at the start of an evening's perfor
(Baily 1988:66-74). Although some of these pieces were quite well kn
others were very rare, and only ever collected from Amir Jan. In th
of the year I learned examples of this genre from him in the followin
Bihd g, Kumadj, Kausieh, Pilu, Kesturi, Bairami, Pdtri, Asa, Asdwar
Bdgheshri, and Yemen Kalydn, with shakl combinations for each. Notation
these unique compositions are being prepared for publication elsewher
the shakl combinations have been communicated in Baily (1981).
We would meet at his house a couple of times per month, except durin
month of Muharram (the month of mourning), when he preferred to res
neighbours' notions on abstinence from worldly pleasures like music and
to my house. Such an encounter would be a day-long affair, from ten or
in the morning to four or five in the afternoon, with soup and bread for
and time to explore other avenues of inquiry and listen critically to tapes
cially of North Indian classical music, which he admired greatly. This
his knowledge of Indian music, of musicians, music history and rag
Ustad Mohammad Omar, Amir Jan taught me by the medium of notation
was not usually prepared to be recorded playing these compositions.
them he had not played for many years and only remembered (and perha
tially recreated) them with some difficulty. It would have been a lot of w
him to practice them up in turn to make definitive archive recordin
worth examining his teaching method in some detail because of the li
throws on his underlying cognitive skills.
More or less uniquely amongst Herati musicians, Amir Jan had con
sargam notation, using the note names Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Da Ni.6
acquired this skill from his own teacher, an ustad from Kabul, with w
had studied in the 1930s. This gave him a precise labelling of pitch and en
him to analyse rdgs as heard in terms of their scales. It also allowed
dictate compositions with spoken or sung note names; normally he wo

5 In fact, I later learned that this was much more like Rag Multani, with its strong
in the fifth (Pa).
6 The Kabuli usage of this notation differs in small details from the Indian, using t
names Sa Ra Re Ga Ge Ma Me Pe Da De Na Ni.

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BAILY Learning to perform as a research technique in ethnomusicology 93

the note names at their appropriate pitches rather than speak them. In teaching
a composition he would first give me its shakl. He would dictate a phrase, I
would write it down, then play it from the sargam notation. Then on to the next
phrase: he dictated, I notated and then played it. Once the shakl was done we
would move on to the composition, each in several parts. He would dictate the
first part, the astdi, and I would write it down; then he would have me play
through it a number of times while he worked out the next section, singing
quietly to himself. Once he was ready he would have me stop playing and get
me to write down the next section - the first antara, then the second antara,
and so on.
In the case of three of these modes the tonic is a note other than Sa. In

Kausieh and Pdri it is Ma, up a fourth, and in Kesturi it is Pa, up a fifth. I fully
expected Amir Jan to transpose the sargam up a fourth or a fifth. When teach-
ing me the first of these, Kausieh, he tried to do this but found it very confusing
(Baily 1981:12). This implies that he had the layout of note positions on the
rubcib very much in mind in his representation of pitch. This may be because
these are instrumental rather than vocal pieces, but the result is still rather
unexpected.
Through his dictations Amir Jan revealed the underlying models which in
performance become buried beneath a welter of rhythmic patterns. Ethnomusi-
cologists often find themselves trying to abstract such models from specific
performances, but here the underlying model was volunteered by the informant
as part of the musical communication. This also encourages me to try to abstract
underlying models from other recorded performances on tape, knowing that
such models are there and recognized as such in the folk view.

Conclusions

What general conclusions can be drawn from this experience of learnin

perform music in Afghanistan? According to a recent handbook of e
musicology:

Ethnomusicologists are more fortunate than anthropologists and sociologist

because the private feelings we study are publicly expressed in musical per
formance. Cultural barriers evaporate when musicologist meets musician.
There is no substitute in ethnomusicological fieldwork for intimacy born o
shared musical experience. Learning to sing, dance, play in the field is goo
fun and good method.
(Myers 1992:31)

Learning to perform may indeed be "good fun", but we need to show in rat
more detail how and why it is also "good method". The following point
offered for consideration.

1. The acquisition of performance skills by the researcher

Learning to perform in order to study performance is arguably the most direct
solution to "Seeger's dilemma" (Herndon 1974); it is the best way of "music-
ing music" as part of the process of data collection and analysis in ethnomusi-

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94 BRITISH JOURNAL OF ETHNOMUSICOLOGY VOL.10/ii 2001

cological research. The importance of this as a research technique,

investigation of the music itself, must be emphasized. One unders
music from the "inside", so to speak. This means that the struct
music comes to be apprehended operationally, in terms of what yo
by implication, of what you have to know. It is this operational aspect
tinguishes the musical knowledge of the performer from that of t
without specific performance skills. The technical problems that arise
ing to perform may also be very revealing about the "ergonomic
music, showing how it fits the human sensori-motor system and t
ment's morphology. My efforts to learn the dutdr and rubab indi
certain characteristics of the traditional repertoire for each instru
adapted to the morphology in question (Baily 1977).
The researcher who uses this research technique will probably
something of a composer, too, generating new compositions or va
known compositions that can then be tried out on one's informants, as
(1967:33) suggested. This approach eventually leads to "dialectical e
cology", most successfully employed in the field by James Kippen in h
of tabla playing in Lucknow (Kippen 1992:72-98).

2. The study of musicality, learning, and musical cognition

Learning to perform provides potentially crucial insights about
and institutions for musical training, such as apprenticeship in the
question. My two main teachers7 represent two rather different
acquisition. Gada Mohammad, the amateur turned professional, was
self-taught. He learned by imitation, watching others closely and la
to reproduce in the privacy of his home what he had observed. Am
had a teacher, who taught him by oral and written notation. Amir Jan
acquired proficiency in sargam and a considerable knowledge of
tions, musical forms, and strategies for melodic improvisation. Arg
two men had developed rather different kinds of musicality, one
and the other "analytical". This is also shown by their use of mus
Gada's knowledge of music theory, acquired later in his career, see
been what I call a representational model, systematizing a body of
that he had acquired without the theory. For Amir Jan, in contrast, m
ory was an operational model. He had learned the music via the the
is probable that these musical cognitive processes were built up ar
that in musical performance he invoked the theory at the cognitive le
distinction is discussed in greater detail by Baily (1988b). The way
teaches is likely to reflect the way that person learned in the first pla
case of these two teachers "by ear" and "by notation".
Gada Mohammad and Amir Jan also exemplified two contrasting
musician status within Herati society - the amateur (turned profes
the hereditary professional. Both displayed some contradictions b

7 Gada Mohammad and Amir Jan were not my only two music teachers in Herat
were the principal ones.

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BAILY Learning to perform as a research technique in ethnomusicology 95

ideal method of teaching and the method actually employed. Dutdr players like
Gada readily understood that playing two dutdrs together was a more efficient
and successful method than listening to and watching another player and later
trying to reproduce what had been done. It was just that there were certain
social impediments to learning by that method. So the way he taught me - or
perhaps I should say the way I got him to teach me - though not the usual
method for dutdr players, was quite acceptable. Amir Jan had four musically
gifted sons, also professional musicians; one played rubab, two played tabla,
and the fourth was a singer and harmonium player. Amir Jan complained that
though each had "a good hand" they had "no science". They had not learned
from him in the way he would have liked to have taught them - systematically,
through notation. He explained this was because they were "proud", implying
that they did not want to acknowledge a debt to him. I had various opportuni-
ties to observe his superior knowledge of music theory.

3. Role, status and identity

Learning to perform has a number of social advantages for the researcher. It
can provide one with an understandable role and status in the community, and
it can be very useful in early orientation. It explains why you are there and
what you are doing. The question of identity was perhaps more apparent in my
second year in Herat, when I was known as the student of Amir Jan. He was
a local ustdd, like Ustad Mohammad Ali the calligrapher, or Ustad Mash'al
the miniature painter, and, like them, he could reasonably have "students".
My status was validated by the local office of the Ministry for Information
and Culture.8
Being his student gave me a window into his daily life. When I went for
lessons I was there for most of the day in his guest room, and so I would meet
his visitors and hear the latest news and gossip. Sometimes he would show me
off to others to demonstrate how quickly one could learn through the use of
written notation. This of course reflected well on him as a teacher. A love of
this music was the basis of our friendship. Through being his student I gained
access to the social world of professional male musicians in Herat, and was
invited to many of their own rites de passage, such as wedding parties, circum-
cisions and other gatherings of musicians. Of course, problems can arise if
you become too closely associated with one person, and issues of rivalry
between informants can also raise difficulties (see, for example, Baily 1988a:
115-16). Perhaps unfairly, outside the Herati community I usually describe
my rubab-playing self to Afghans as the student of Ustad Mohammad Omar,
whose name and music are familiar to everyone. This confers instant prestige.
Among non-musicians only Heratis are familiar with the name of Amir Jan,
though he was well known among the hereditary professional musicians of
Kabul, from whom his knowledge ultimately derived.

8 I never became his official student in a gorbandi ceremony, with a string of seven colours
tied round the wrist.

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96 BRITISH JOURNAL OF ETHNOMUSICOLOGY VOL.10/ii 2001

4. Participant observation
There can be no doubt that music making provides opportunities fo
participation that is generally denied to anthropologists using the m
of participant observation. It is not so much that "bimusicalit
participation at the expense of observation" (after Myers 1992) but
pation leads to improved opportunities for observation. Being ab
to a reasonable standard provides privileged access to the actual
just discussed. It also gives direct entry into the performance ev
issue for study in ethnomusicology. This advantage is well ill
Veronica Doubleday's experiences as a member of a women's b
(Doubleday 1988). Going out for 24 hours at a time to play
wedding parties provided extraordinary insights into the relationsh
performance and social context, and into the lives of working wom
ally did not become a member of a Herati band on a regular ba
were many occasions when I was required or volunteered to play
gatherings of cognoscenti. Some years later, when making a film a
refugee musicians in Pakistan, this ability to perform Afghan
enormous advantage. It was not so much that I understood the m
former but that being able to play it gave me an immediate and
common experience with people to whom I was a complete stran
all heirs to a common musical tradition. Again, it was a matter of m
tionships forming the basis for social relationships.

5. The post-fieldwork period

The person who uses learning to perform as a research technique is
stop once fieldwork is over. On the contrary, you tend to take on
your own. After twenty years of playing Afghan music, with man
public performances in Europe and the USA, Veronica Doubled
become "Afghan musicians", accepted as such by the various Afghan
ties with whom we have been in contact. This also has thrown up s
contradictions. There is a tendency to become a "living fossil"
continue to perform the repertoire you learned at the time of fiel
ignore processes of musical change. When the Afghans want "tradit
music" - at least as performed in Herat - they send for us. How th
in the post-fieldwork period will depend on a number of factors, i
specifics of the musical culture in question and what happens t
researcher has left the field. The civil war which prevented my retu
istan after 1977 was responsible for many Afghans coming to E
USA as refugees; these included a number of musicians, some of
from before the war, such as Ustad Asef Mahmood, the tabla playe
or Aziz Herawi, the dutar and rubcib player in San Francisco.
In this changed situation the researcher becomes a resource, t
field recordings invaluable remnants of a cultural heritage, the fie
the informants' own music history. Learning to perform someo
becomes part of the wider acculturative process of "transfer and re
music and music theory from one socio-cultural environment to ano
1987:74). At the end of the day, the researcher becomes the researc

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BAILY Learning to perform as a research technique in ethnomusicology 97

References

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Note on the author

John Baily is Reader in Ethnomusicology at Goldsmiths College, University

of London. He holds doctorates in Experimental Psychology (Sussex, 1970)
and Social Anthropology (Ethnomusicology) (Queen's University Belfast,
1988) and is also a graduate of the Documentary Film section of the National
Film and Television School (1986). His ethnomusicological research career
has focused mainly on music and musicians in Afghanistan and in the Afghan
transnational community. Address: Department of Music, Goldsmiths College,
New Cross, London SE14 6NW; e-mail: j.baily@gold.ac.uk.

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