A former colleague of mine is researching local musicians of a particular genre for her thesis- we’ll say jazz, for the sake of anonymity. While this person is delving into the scholarship surrounding various local jazz cultures, etc., she, in general, doesn’t follow much jazz overall. That is to say, while the interest on a local level is there, the interest and appreciation for the canon as a whole is lacking. What does this suggest? A few possible reasons could be:

1. Academic scholarship often doesn’t suggest a strong level of personal interest in a given topic.
2. The desire to be involved in a “scene” or local celebrity.
3. Having a personal connection to the subjects outweighs the actual product (music, in this case).
4. The notion that by having a deep “micro” knowledge one needn’t be concerned with the macro.
5. By not doing (i.e., playing jazz herself), immersing and surrounding herself with doers makes her a de facto participant.

By no means is this an exhaustive list, but these are the first the come to mind. (Of course, I’m also speaking from personal experience and interaction with this individual.) I’m only using this person as a particular example, as this is something I see as a larger troubling trend. In graduate school, I noticed a number of colleagues choosing thesis and “doctoral document” (a peculiar item in music studies) topics almost by chance. It was “Hey, that’s neat” as opposed to “This is something I want to champion.” (It wasn’t unusual for the former reason to eventually transform into the latter, but not in all cases.)

My greatest concern regarding this issue is that “scholars” may sometimes be more observers than participants, or tryers rather than doers. If so, how can this be? If one is going to immerse oneself in jazz, wouldn’t that also suggest a participation in the performance of it? As a close friend and colleague of mine, Matt Borghi, often says, “It ain’t that deep.” Sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it is. At any rate, how would one know without doing (at least on some basic level)? In an earlier post, I mentioned an academic analysis of The Rolling Stones and their supposed capitalist undermining of their working-class message. Maybe it isn’t that deep. Maybe their working-class roots and interest in American blues gave them a solid grounding that transcends whatever commercial success they’ve since experienced.

Often when performing I’m more concerned with the music feeling and sounding good than I am with trying to convey some abstract message. Other times I’m not. The point is, I know that because I’m on stage doing it, and not in the audience (or even backstage) simply making an educated guess. I know from experience, which is really the best research one can do.