Music 666 Partial Ethnography

Monday, April 19, 2010

Example of "Outfield Notes" during fieldwork at an Edmonton coffee shop

Day 6

Friday February 19, 2010

11:00 am

When I first entered the coffee shop this morning the music was again barely audible. It seemed to be a jazzy combination of marimba and brass. I would almost classify it as “muzak.” I took a seat in one of the large chairs by the window so that I had a good view of most of the shop. Initially there were 4 women and 1 man in line. The first hour that I was there it seemed that men would rarely stay in the shop and would take their orders to go. Many ordered sandwiches and there seemed to be a soup and sandwich lunch deal. 3 individual women in their mid-thirties sat around me. One read a book while the two others were doing work on their computers. To my left a group of 3 women seemed to be having a social lunch meeting and often laughed together during their conversation. 4 others sat at various places in the shop doing work or talking on their phones. The 3 baristas rarely spoke except when they needed assistance with certain orders. 1 of them worked on the right of the counter preparing sandwiches and soup orders, 1 worked at the register preparing drinks and 1 seemed to fill in when the others needed assistance.

At around 12:15 the music was turned on a little louder and continued to fluctuate in volume for the rest of the time that I was there. It was consistently mellow but I had the impression that the baristas turned it up once the lunch rush had passed on at around 12:00. At 12:30 a new song came on that was much louder than before and included a pulsating beat. Numerous people including the group of three meeting in front of me made faces showing their displeasure. A worker came out of the back and said, “This is only one song,” as if to say that the volume only applied to that one song. At about 12:30 one of the baristas went on break and sat at a table next to the counter. She bobbed her head to the music playing on her iPod. At 12:35 the music was turned up too loud again and was quickly corrected by one of the baristas who ran into the back to turn it down.

Audio Selection

"A Rehearsal" by Patrick Smith.m4v

Metadata for Videography

Videographer: Patrick Smith

Participants: Matthew Knight and Ben Doleac

Instrumentation: voice, mandolin and guitar

Location: University of Alberta FAB 2-7

Date: Opening Scene while entering FAB 2-7: April 18, 2010

The rehearsal: March 23, 2010

Editing Program: Imovie

Video Cameras: Opening Scene: Zoom Q3

The rehearsal: Panasonic PV- GS320

Settings: Default for opening scene and beginning of rehearsal. For the section depicting Matthew Knight playing solo I used the “MagicPix” setting. According to the manual, “This function allows you to record color subjects in dark locations to stand out against the background… Recorded scene is seen as if frames were missed.”

Notes: It is quite evident that the image quality is better on the Panasonic. When the subject area is well lit the two cameras are comparable. However, when dealing with dark scenes the Zoom Q3 is a little grainy. I have not yet been able to test out the sound on the Zoom. However, with the Panasonic the sound quality is generally clear even though it would definitely benefit from having an external microphone attached to give more “dimension” to the sound. The “MagicPix” setting seems to brighten certain segments of the subject and record so that the image and the sound do not match up exactly. As the manual explains, the “Recorded scene is seen as if frames were missed.”