Embedding Observation into the Context of Cultural Musicology: Some Moments in Mexico City

Abstract

Narrative analysis needs narration. In cultural musicology, a term worth being taken up in succession and contemporary modification of ethnomusicology or anthropology of music, observation is an essential skill that most elaborately reveals itself in narration. Moreover, narrations include personal features and thoughts that are often avoided in academic writings. However, they offer a wide potential for narrative analysis.This paper is to exemplarily discuss theoretical issues on cultural musicology taking a holistic approach that includes analytic description, heuristics, source interpretation by means of the so called objective hermeneutics, and phenomenology. In 2008, outlines of some small stories put exemplarily together were written down in German, and part of a story collection was published in 2009. The city being observed is Mexico City that was visited in September 2006. This paper is to review the original narrations in an extended version under the aspect of their academic effectiveness after having developed further analytical tools in the last 5 years. Besides questioning conservative academic rules of reporting outcomes, this paper also reflects on the possibilities of intense methodological developments during a relatively short time.The topics of discussion include dealing with and presenting cultural heritage (Danzas de los Voladores), history of sound preservation (Songs of the Cora Indians), music in social movements and holistic approaches to research.