ETHN100 Spring 2020

THE SONIC ETHNOGRAPHY

OF COVID-19

Kohl courtyard, March

Introduction 19, 2020, 2.30pm
As I walked around campus the other day to extract the things I needed from
my office, I couldn’t help but notice the absence of sounds. I didn’t run into a
single person in Bibbins. The classrooms and hallways were empty. The fliers
adorning the staircases all gone. The space between Bibbins and Kohl was
void of people, where normally folx would be hanging out, smoking, chatting
with friends, or jamming on such a nice day, or simply walking through to get
where they were going. In Kohl, too, the only person I encountered was Bob,
the janitor, cleaning, even though almost everyone else now has the privilege

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ETHN100 Spring 2020

of working from home. The businesses that you

frequented near campus to grab a cup of coffee,
a bagel, or some Thai food, are shuttered or
doing carry out/delivery only. Our lives are not
the same. Our routines have been affected and
upended.

As the patterns of our

social, political, religious,
and economic lives have
shifted, so, too, have the
sounds we encounter,
experience and make,
including those we call
music.

The times we are currently living in are

extraordinary and unprecedented. As students
of ethnomusicology, you have the opportunity to
apply your knowledge to the moment by
documenting these times as an ethnographer of
sound. What better way to practice your
ethnomusicological skills than documenting and Stairwells in Bibbins, March 19, 2020, 2pm.
making meaning out of the most pressing crisis of our
times.

Drawing on what social scientists call the “lived experience,” I

want to encourage you to create a personally meaningful,
creative document that helps us understand what it felt and
sounded like to live through these challenging times.

As we have learned, ethnomusicology offers us tools to document and make sense of sounds in
connection to socio-cultural environments. This assignment asks you to gather primary sources that
will aid you, and future generations, to analyze and interpret this moment — how sounds and
musical habits have changed in the times of COVID-19, and what that tells us about what it feels
like, sounds like, to be alive and inhabit the world at this particular moment. As a class, we are no
longer all in the U.S., nor are our lives and strictures on our movements (at least at the time of

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ETHN100 Spring 2020

writing) the same for those of us that remain here. Each of us will be in different constellations of
social connections during these times, whether we are with our biological or created families; with
people who are older or at serious risk; or whether we or our loved ones fall sick with the virus. This
assignment, then, is about documenting YOUR individual lived reality.

The assignment will stretch throughout the second module, working in concert with our class
readings and discussions. It asks you to work with and assemble different kinds of materials.

PRIMARY SOURCE MATERIALS

1. Your Fieldnotes (required)

GOAL: Keep a dedicated account of the sounds you hear and your thoughts about them. You
should aim to do at least 3 entries per week.

CONTENT: think about the variety of sounds you are hearing—or those that you no longer hear
—and how these might have changed as a result of COVID-19.

Geophonic sounds: I don’t expect this category to change much, but perhaps you are less
aware if you are under a “shelter in place” order and getting outside less.

Biphonic sounds: are you getting outside for walks/ exercise? Do you hear more/ less of
birds/ critters?

Anthrophonic sounds: I expect these have changed the most radically as you are not in the
same social situation as you were 2 weeks ago. Even if you are staying on campus, things
must sound different with fewer people, fewer social interactions.

What, if any, are the new sounds of your daily life? For example, perhaps you are listening to
more news or news conferences, having new conversations about the virus, or interacting
with different people?

What are the sounds of the coronavirus? For example, new music and covers released in
response to it?

What sounds do you no longer hear? For example, sounds of life on campus or in the dorms
and campus dining halls; canceled music shows, rehearsals, and performances; or canceled
religious services.

How have sounds been modified through new media, i.e. social interactions through
videoconferencing?

How has COVID-19 changed your musical habits (practicing, listening, playing with others?)
Are you listening to or engaging with music in new ways (i.e. exclusively through social media
or YouTube, now)

FORMAT: each day should be identified with date and information about place, being as
specific as possible about sounds in a particular place. You could opt to do this as a sound or
video journal, rather than a written one.

2. Your Recordings (optional)

If you have the means to (equipment and space), you should record some of the sounds that you
encounter. Please note that I am NOT asking you to endanger yourselves by going out into public in
order to document sounds. Do this component ONLY if you can do so safely without risk of
exposure to the virus.

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ETHN100 Spring 2020

3. Archive of other materials and texts (required)

What other texts are you

seeing or creating that
capture this moment as
it evolves?
Include in this archive at least 5 primary
sources (contemporaneous to this event) that
you find particularly striking or meaningful.
For instance, it could be memes, news,
images (like those I include here) or songs
that come across your social media field or
announcements by musicians of live
streaming opportunities. It could be a
snapshot of your email with the multiple
notices of closures or other effects. It could Apollo closure in times of social distancing, March 19, 2020, 3.48pm
be a photo you took of people social
distancing that you found striking — or the
opposite, such as the continued Spring Break
partying on the beach. Please include a one paragraph annotation for each explaining what
each means, how you interacted with it, and how it became meaningful to you personally.

SECONDARY MATERIAL
4. Secondary Source Annotated Bibliography

You should find 5-10 secondary sources that help you understand the current moment and prepare
an annotated bibliography. Your annotations should include a general summary of the source, what
the source contributes to your understanding of these novel events, and what limitations the source
may have. To help you write your annotations, ask yourself: What broader contexts do you learn
about from this source? These can include historical insights, social insights, and economic
insights. For instance, a source may analyze the economic fallout of the 1918 Flu pandemic and
may give you insights into the emerging economic crisis. What arguments or interpretations about
change over time and its significance does it put forward? Does it offer any theoretical framework
that might be transferable to other cases? Make sure to make your annotations analytical: they
should be more than simple description or summary.

Great places to look:

A bibliography I made that includes class readings and a collection of resources from other
crowd-sourced syllabi.

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ETHN100 Spring 2020

Putting it all together: Your Sonic Ethnography of COVID-19

5. For your final project you will put together a sonic ethnography. This will be your account and
analysis of sound in the times of COVID-19. There are a number of different ways you can approach
this, both to narrow the topic and present the material. For example, you could present it as

either a
written ethnography OR
an ethnography of sound through sound (i.e. an audio or video
recording, a playlist, a composition, or a podcast).

For the latter, option you would need sound examples. In terms of content, you could do an
acoustemological or soundscape study or an ethnography about the changed lives of musicians
which invokes the tripartite model to see how changed concepts have shifted behaviors.

Whatever format or approach you take, I am most concerned about the demonstration of the
following parameters:

1. That there is an introduction, which lays out the

Please note: If you opt for a sound/ video
argument and approach you will take, along with a
conclusion.
document that doesn’t included verbal
2. That you recognize that ethnography is always interpretation, you will need a min. 500-word
selective and partial, so it’s important to give a supporting written analysis that tells me how
sense of time and place, including shifts in these, your sound/video piece is connected to
along with a sense of your positionality.
class material, how it advances or connects
3. That you use AT LEAST ONE theoretical concept
with one of those theoretical concepts, and
from class to support your analysis and argument.
This could include terms from soundscape ecology the human meanings of the sounds.

(i.e. geophony, biophony, anthrophony);

acoustemology; the tripartite model, or Peircian semiotics.

4. That you draw on and include your primary source materials in your ethnography, including
recordings, music videos, images, and texts.

5. That you talk about the social dimensions of these sounds, how they have impacted and reflect
on human lives.

Format: Very rough guidelines: approximately 10-15 minutes for a podcast, or 1000-1500 words for
a written account. I leave it to you to decide what is a substantive, creative response to the prompt.

REFLECTION & SELF-ASSESSMENT

For the reflection, respond to the following questions:

Why did you choose this particular focus?

Why did you choose this particular format? What does it allow that other formats do not?

What were the challenges of this assignment? What were the rewards?

What did you learn through the process of completing this assignment?

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ETHN100 Spring 2020

Self-assessment
A rough rubric to grading

Part 1: 10%: Your fieldnotes/ sonic journal (submitted each week for at least 5 weeks)

Part 2: optional

Part 3: 5%: Your archive of other primary materials (May 4)

Part 4: 5%: Your annotated bibliography of secondary sources (May 4)

Part 5: 20%: Your ethnography and reflection (May 14, 9pm EST)

For this part, we will collectively brainstorm some parameters for grading through a
google doc.

A FINAL NOTE
In these difficult times, I
hope that this assignment
allows you the time and
space to help better
document and understand
the sonic dimensions of
the unprecedented events
that we are all
experiencing. We are all
making this up as we go
along — no one alive on
this planet has gone
through what we are
going through now. It is
totally normal to feel
anxious, overwhelmed,
and frightened when The silence of Bibbins 224, March 13, 2020
confronting changes of
this scale and
magnitude.

Please know that as we progress through these times together, you can always reach out to me if
you need it. Our economy and society will see some turbulent times ahead, but the only way to get
through this is together, by creating community and trying to make sense of it. Take care of yourself,
stay home, wash your hands, and know you are in my thoughts.

Acknowledgments
The idea for this project was inspired by Dr. Wallace Fuentes, a historian at Roanoke College, who graciously
shared their project with other faculty through a Facebook group dedicated to meaningful teaching in these
times. I have borrowed some of their language.

Jennifer Fraser 6