So I have decided to do the open mic scene. What I plan to do is attend a handful of open mics and observe the atmosphere, see who is going, who is playing, and why. As for interviews I'm not sure yet if I want to interview random people who happen to play the nights I go, or friends I know that regularly play. Possibly both.
Anyways, the reason I chose to do the open mic scene over western art music is this...
So at community college I used to take random music classes for fun and I happen to become friends with a lot of the actual music students. For some reason I came to notice that a handful of them seemed to have this 'music snob' air to them. (Not to offend anyone). What I mean by this is that they would in a way look down at folk/indie music and I was never really sure why. I guess it could be because it's simple and by western art standards not 'professional'. So now I want to look at it from the other perspective and see what those who are in the open mic scene, which is for the most part comprised of folk/indie music, have to say about why they do what they do and maybe even what they have to say in response to criticisms like the one I just described.
Nice. There is a lot of literature you could consider on "Community Music" (you can even do a graduate degree in it in some Universities), as well as music in the community. A couple books, of quite different types, that spring to mind are below, but I'm also sure there are a great many academic articles that you could easily get hold of, including some on open mics I'd imagine.
ReplyDeleteFinnegan, Ruth. The Hidden Musicians: Music-Making in an English Town. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press
And:
Renshaw, Peter. 2010. Engaged Passions: Searches for Quality in Community Contexts. Delft: Eburon.