Musical Ethonography

Introduction

The event that I went to for RadioUTD was not much of an event, it was a basic part of their musical life. RadioUTD is made up from their broadcasts and dances, so their holding of one doesn’t speak of anything out of the ordinary. The broadcast that I went to was held on the fifth of March (2010), and was held in the Student Union at 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM. The broadcaster for the event was Andrew Godefry (though, I went early enough that I heard a little bit from the person before him, though I didn’t catch his name at the time). His performance, Duderonomy, is based on Hip-Hop, Rock, and everything in between.

Music

Much of the music is distinctly American stylized (though, not all of it comes from America), and follows the general stylisms: homophonic with a melodic tonal center, a non-complex melody, and highly pulsatile (though the last one can be attributed that much of it was “music that you can dance to”). Probably the most characteristic about the culture was the pulsatile nature of the music. When asked, neither Godefry nor Leyla Aksu (the Musical Director for RadioUTD), were able to come up with something non-pulsatile. This can be directly attributed to the station’s big attraction, its dances. Non-pulsatile music is much harder to use in influencing motion in the listeners, and would thus not be used very much in the broadcastings of the station. Similarly, the homophonic and melodic nature of the songs can be attributed to the American audience that the broadcast is being made out to.

Performers

Though there isn’t much being seen by the audience, the performers are far from doing a performance. While the event was going on, Godefry was constantly flipping through CDs, updating the music list, keeping track of what the comments about the broadcast were, making comments during the intermission between certain songs, and a million other things that I probably didn’t notice. While this was going on, however, Godefry was in no state of rush during the ordeal, going between places without much of a rushed haste in his pace. Similarly, he was able to converse with the other performers during the broadcast, as well as the audience, without losing his stride in the performance. However, no form of cues was given between the broadcasters during the performance. Each artist was left to his or her own means in deciding what would be done while the performance was under-way.

Audiance

Though there was an audience, the audience was not in visible. Almost everyone that was listening to the performance through the Internet broadcast provided by RadioUTD. Though they might not be visible, the massive majority of the people attending the broadcast were students from UTD (with several faculty members from UTD as well). In that regard, the people who are UTD students/faculty are “insiders,” and the non-UTD students/faculty are “outsiders” (though, in the interview with Godefry, he made a great point that the radio welcomes everyone). The reaction during the performance was rather limited due to the lack of a visible audience, though the comments/requests made to the station while it was a rather noticeable reaction to the songs being played. Similarly, because of the requests that were made to the station there was a high level of communication between the audience and the performers, not to mention the talk sessions that were held in-between certain songs.

Time and Space

The office that was used by the radio had a definite impact on the actions made by the performers. Due to the small nature of the office, the CDs were arranged all along one of the walls, making the arrangement extremely important. While there were many CDs, due to the alphabetical organization, they were quickly found among the many different CDs with relative ease (this was most notable when Godefry was quickly deciding which song to use next in the performance). However, despite the office being perfectly made for the performers, it is not the case for the viewers (assuming they want to watch the performers while it is all going on). Due to the office’s location in the Student Union, it is almost impossible to really have a spot to sit and view the performance as it is going on live. However, this is most likely for its main, online, viewing. While the actual physical location is not designed for viewing, the website is an extension of the main University of Texas at Dallas website, and is easily accessed. Similarly, due to the WiFi around the campus, it is quite easy to listen in to the performance as it is being done.

Conclusion

While the actual performance was done a bit on the fly (what with all of the requests made by the audience, and the performers deciding on songs as time went on), the actual event was anything but. The actual location was pivotal to having the music heard by the largest group possible, and served as the backbone of the entire performance. Without the webspace involved, the performance would not have made it to the double digits in listeners most likely. That is heavily due to the audience being made up of students. Due to time constraints that students are most likely having, they would not be able to effectively go to any form of live performance, but would be able to listen to the performance if they would be able to stream it from the web (most likely not having a radio, outside of their car, to listen to). The performers took advantage of the “lulls” while a song had just started to prepare for the next one coming up, to update the information about the song being played, or to reply to comments made by the listeners. The time of the event, however, had a very opposite effect on the performance. Due to it running from 2:00 -4:00 PM, many of the students would be in classes and unable to listen to the performance. This meant that the listeners either had morning or night classes, and the performance might have been altered due to that being the case (though, that is something that I would need to take more time to study the culture than was given in this regard).

Citation

Dudeoronomy. Andrew Godefry. University of Texas at Dallas, Dallas. March 5, 2010.

Godefry, Andrew. Personal Interview. 5 March 2010.

Aksu, Layla. Personal Interview. 5 March 2010.