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 4 Revisiting methods of socio-sonic inquiry (Re-)inquiring Africa’s socio-sonic fields Much of the recent, sociologically-inclined music research in African studies is based on two main paradigms. The first paradigm evokes the claim that music “reflects” the wider cultural, social, political, economic etc. realities and institutions it is produced and consumed in. Music is assumed and approached as a form of multi-layered “text” that can be interpreted as a social chronicle. Music, in its various musical idioms and especially in its verbal expressions, is then taken as a reflection of prevalent social discourses and realities and, furthermore, as a representation of broader societal traits and structures – a societal “mirror”. The underlying epistemological stance of that paradigm can be summarized in the assertion that: as music is “done” by society, music “speaks” of society. While this first paradigm can be found in many socio-musical studies concerned with socio-musical fields outside Africa as well, the second paradigm might be regarded as a sort of specifically Africanist’ paradigm in music studies. This paradigm draws a significant distinction between music produced locally and music produced elsewhere. Karin Barber (1987: 108), in her influential essay on Popular Arts in Africa, explains the importance of this distinction by stating that art “produced by the people themselves (…) has a better claim to express some aspects of their own attitudes or experience”. While this claim might be valid in analytical terms (as it somewhat eases the endeavour to read society through its own music), it carries the fallacy to restrict the “readings” to this very locally produced music and thereby to disregard music that often has a much wider African listenership – that is: non-locally (or “globally”) produced music. These two paradigms – to approach music as a societal mirror and to confine music’s mirroring to locally produced music – yield several methodological shortcomings and analytical fallacies. The commonly implemented mode of a “mirroring”-interpretation is structured along a line which might be described as Chapter 4: Revisiting methods of socio-sonic inquiry 33 reaching (and reading) from the inside-out: one looks at “what is in the music” (the inside) to deduce from it “what is (alleged) to be in society” (the outside). Beside the risk of producing tautological circles and thriving on a fairly simplistic mode of mimesis – since one is prone to find in the music only what one has already found, or been searching for, in society (and the other way round) – there are at least four main problems at stake. The first problem concerns the enigmatic quest for music’s meaning. The “inside-out” mode of reading music in (its) relation to society – thus of reading society through (its own) music – is premised, again; more often implicitly than explicitly, on yet another well-established paradigm in the study of music which suggests that the meanings of music are to be found in the music itself. This idea might be well suitable for the rather narrow hermeneutic modes of musicological analysis (in which the strictly musical parameters of music are analysed; e.g. harmony, melody, riff, beat). For any sociologically-oriented music analysis, however, the concept of music’s intrinsic meanings proves delusive. Its utilization is nevertheless as widespread as unchallenged and particularly visible in Africanist’ studies dealing with so-called “political music”. In these “sociopolitical music studies”, which in fact form the bulk of Africanists’ music-related studies, notions are coined such as music as “the means of expression of the marginalized masses” or the somewhat self-contradicting idea of music as “the voice of the voiceless” (see e.g. Englert 2008). In regard of musical expressions, this sort of political function-lens was obviously inspired by musicians’ potential and ability “to sing what cannot be spoken” (Agawu 2001: 4), their granted Narrenfreiheit to criticize the establishment. Whereas these approaches towards music have their due rationale, first and foremost by pointing out the socio-political relevance of musical expressions, they speak of several conceptual and methodological fallacies. Too often music is confined only to its (politically relevant) lyrics, at the expanse of its vital characteristics of non-verbal sounds, performance, and play. Likewise, the focus put on ideological and political contents (of musical lyrics) often obstructs a more heuristic view on the broad range of ideological stances inherent in musical expressions and their social interpretations. These might, and often do, range from explicit class-conscious critiques, to a more or less tacit support of the status quo...

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