the fieldworker’s “gaze” in portraying cultural activities. Ethnomusicologists, as a result, could no longer appear as a neutral presence in the communities they studied. Instead, increasing numbers of researchers portrayed themselves as actors in a more complex model of cultural interaction. Acquiring musical skill, in this light, became a site of ambivalence, striking directly at the ethnomusicologist’s sense of legitimacy as a representative of an “Other’s” musical culture.8
One of the most dramatic and effective attempts to document this ambivalence appeared in Michael Bakan’s stirring, nearly novelistic account of his own experiences as a student of Balinese gamelan beleganjur drumming (Bakan 1999: 279–333). In an extended narrative, Bakan described in detail his several month relationship with his drumming teacher, the educational models he and his teacher employed in imparting musical information, and the issues he faced as an American trying to internalize an art form far more commonly taught to other Balinese. What distinguished Bakan’s narrative from other similar descriptions of music learning in the literature (see, for example, Berliner 1979) was the intense scrutiny he placed upon the phenomenological process of becoming a beleganjur drummer. Amid all his ruminations and discussions of educational and cultural difference between himself and the Balinese, Bakan described continually improving at his craft—in fits and starts, and by working through several setbacks. The most substantial moments of realization, which he framed as “tuning-in experiences” (316), somehow stemmed from his practice and study, yet went beyond rational explanation. After a significant amount of build-up, Bakan’s narrative climaxed in a triumphant drumming session, which he called “A Transformative Moment” (323). “[F]or one brief moment, at least,” he noted,
I have been able to move to some deeper place; into the experience of a more profound musical awareness than I had known or known existed; to a musical realm where the technical, the precise, the well-wrought, the beautiful, have become something other than what they seemed: reflections and embodiments not of themselves, but of a deep commitment and trust, of a transformation into a communion where we do not remain what we were before. (328)
Just as with the cantorial students at the start of this chapter, Bakan had experienced his own moment of becoming. His transcendent moment provided an important turning point for him musically, socially, and academically, and could be seen as a key prerequisite for progress into professional life.9 Moreover, like the cantorial graduates, Bakan went on to assume several positions of leadership and creativity within his chosen musical culture—directing ensembles, writing compositions, and performing with other recognized musicians mainly in the United States—while also achieving recognition as a scholarly authority.
Bakan’s intimate insight into his own strivings for understanding and respect within a musical culture opens a valuable window into ethnomusicologists’ quests to explore and perhaps acquire a musical identity. Even more to the point, however, his account allows us to question how closely an ethnomusicologist’s project to comprehend a musical culture might parallel the musical journeys of the people they frame as cultural “insiders.” It is tempting, after reading Bakan’s account, to put up a mirror and ask how “insiders” themselves might experience musical training as a form of rigorous acculturation. Might they similarly approach the musical training process as a foreign one, but with the hopes of gaining a cultural intimacy they already see as their own? And to what end?
I bring these thoughts to my study of American Reform Jewish cantorial training, where those who aspire to enter the cantorate can be seen on different levels as both insiders and outsiders. In fashioning a project to achieve ethnographic depth in situ among a range of musical aspirants, however, I faced a challenge. Brinner (1995), Shelemay (1992), Berliner (1994), Scott DeVeaux (1997) and others based much of their detailed accounts of the musical learning process on interviews taken significantly after the actual time of professional training. While their resulting analyses offer important insights, they nonetheless allowed informants to embed their paths to competence within post-facto frameworks, using cursory images and fleeting descriptions.10 In what way, then, could I, a researcher with similar aims, create a more systematic and in-depth environment for exploring both personal and technical transformation as it happens—satisfactorily, without resorting to self-analysis?
My attempted solution involved conducting fieldwork where musical learning had become institutionalized—sites often described as “schools.” Brinner and others treat these sites as places of modernization or nationalization that complemented and postdated more “traditional” forms of musical learning (1995: 17, 20, 105–106). While conceding this point to a certain extent (I believe institutions symbolize modernity far better than they actually represent historical “progress”), I also found institutional frameworks to provide students with a heightened site for cultural transmission—a central, well-defined, and multi-layered space for exploring musical transformation both individually and collectively.11 The communal nature of institutionalized programs, which combined standardized courses of study with less rigorously programmed spaces for personal growth and discussion, created a rich, enduring site for exploring musical tradition—one that carried with it its own vocabulary, cultural referents, and group experiences. This kind of structure also offered opportunities for enculturation into a larger fellowship of practitioners, thus promoting continuous “insider” musical discussions well beyond the institution itself.
The institution as fieldsite may seem mundane to fieldworkers destined to spend their professional careers in similarly conceived academic environments (thus the oft-discussed issue of the fieldsite as “a journey away” [Amit 2000: 8]). Yet the institution’s deceptively conservative nature encompassed the very criteria Brinner found to be necessary in achieving a substantive study on attaining musical competence: a clearly bounded community, the perception of a consistent training process, and well-defined centers of activity. Bruno Nettl and Henry Kingsbury laid the foundation for this kind of study in their analyses of Western “Classical” music conservatories (Nettl 1995; Kingsbury 2001[1988]). Kingsbury, who situated his ethnography at the pseudonymous Eastern Metropolitan Conservatory of Music, offered an impassioned argument justifying the conservatory as a legitimate ethnographic fieldsite, an extension of classical anthropological fieldwork in the spirit of Claude Lévi-Strauss and Margaret Mead. Though not necessarily as “exotic” a locale as other fieldsites, he asserted, the conservatory nonetheless housed its own “cultural system,” rife with disputes and negotiations about aesthetic and social values (Kingsbury 2001[1988]: 9–13). Within this system, Kingsbury explored the importance of “talent” as a concept often used to predict the progress and eventual success of students. Nettl, who based his observations on fifty years’ experience with college music programs, expanded Kingsbury’s frame to explore other significant cultural practices of conservatory and college music department life—from the canonization of “great” figures in the tradition, to the tensions inherent among advocates of different music value systems, to questions of repertoire choice. Both studies detailed important aspects of the musical becoming process within an institutional setting. In doing so, however, they also focused primarily on cultural models defined predominantly by instructors and administrations. Student voices sounded occasionally throughout their discussions, but more in support of the institutional superculture than in trying to come to terms with their own personal transitions as musicians and people.
My study of the community associated with the Hebrew Union College School of Sacred Music—the official cantorial training institution of American Reform Judaism—also retains some interest in the structure of musical transmission. I attempt to use that structure, however, to address specific questions about the ways both the School and its students relate to history, ethnic and religious identity, and the relationship between music and spirituality. Students who entered the school did not face or participate in the same kind of internal competition inherent in Kingsbury’s conservatory. The direct relationship the School of Sacred Music held with its alumni, other Jewish religious leadership, and Reform Judaism’s religious constituents, created a significantly less contentious dynamic, as well as a sense of community different from the conservatory’s often scattered personal relationships and reputations.12 Cantorial students more often valued themselves based on what kind of cantor each would become, and how their personal choices during training would help