Audio file
Title: Conrad Arensberg, Alan Lomax, and sociologist Stanley Udy discuss classifications of work organization and music (part 1)
Date recorded: February , 1966
Contributor(s): Contributor: Udy, Stanley; Contributor: Arensberg, Conrad; Contributor: Lomax, AlanBelongs to: Arensberg/Udy/Lomax, 1966
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Date recorded: February , 1966
Contributor(s): Contributor: Udy, Stanley; Contributor: Arensberg, Conrad; Contributor: Lomax, Alan
Description: Conversation between Alan Lomax, Stanley Udy, and Conrad Arensberg on classification of work organization.
Subject(s): Cantometrics; Ethnomusicology; Anthropology
Genre: interview/commentary
Location:
Physical form: Reel to Reel
Tape number: T2025
Track Number: 1
Archive ID: T2025R17
Note: The institutionalizing characteristics of work, temporary and autonomous organization and rewards, long term, performance oriented. More difficult to organize permanent societies in non-industrialized societies. Basic auxiliary work organization associated with agriculture because agriculture tends to have varying workloads over the yearly cycle. Members were added and subtracted. Recruited through kinship obligations. Societies with basic auxiliary organization were capable of supporting all kinds of complex structures, including music. Wherever custodial work teams (forced labor) occur, they can be coded as dominant. Familial organizations can occur anywhere (including along with custodial) and seem to be somewhat independent of overall structure (layered societies). Stanley Udy's classifications of work: custodial, contractual, familiar, voluntary. Alan Lomax: You don't get multi-layered musical organization in many parts of the world. Alan explains what Cantometrics looks at and discusses Cantometric findings. American Indians have a fairly uniform musical style despite recent presence of agriculture. Udy would like to think music constitutes something about man's relationship to the environment. Lomax: Artist reinterprets social interaction. Social structure is based on technology. A complex orchestral score is analogous to a blueprint of an industrial corporation. Arensberg: Chinese find thumping rhythms of Western military marches suggestive of sex. Lomax: Their music sounds snarly to us, but they like it. Chinese emperor spoke this way. Our tradition is to tamp everything out. Renaissance notion that anything but pure tone is "bad singing." Rules of organization not made explicit, but once roles explained anyone can pick them up. Arensberg: In people, superior ability is tied to energy level. Discussion of modern art music's failure to appeal to broad audiences. Udy's experiences as member of a chamber group. It became difficult to re-adjust to diatonic music after playing Bartok. Lomax: Hunter-gatherers use wide musical intervals, intensive agriculturalists use medium intervals, and irrigation cultures use narrow intervals. Udy wonders if wide musical intervals among hunters are because hunters are spread out. Discussion of variables in coding system. Murdock's variables. Ritual as image of society. Lomax: Language is also a form of communication about organization, but buried under communication about other aspects. Udy: Where you don't have custodial organization you tend to have contractual. Contractual organization may be "post custodial." The problem of economic development is how to transform custodial back to contractual. Arensberg: "Free economic system" (market system) and national system (rational bureaucracy) grow out of movement from custodial, but there is some hang-on of older systems.
About the session: Conrad Arensberg, Alan Lomax, and sociologist Stanley Udy discuss classifications of work organization and music.
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