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Neighborhood Ethnography (30 points): 2-4 pages (double-spaced text); due by 11:59pm on Tuesday 11/22 (day of Session 23)

Sociology

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1. Neighborhood Ethnography (30 points): 2-4 pages (double-spaced text); due by 11:59pm on Tuesday 11/22 (day of Session 23).
   1. Each neighborhood, each public area has a specific and sometimes shifting soundscape. Take the area around City College as an example (but not one you can use in your writing): during the day and well into the evening denizens of the neighborhood play music ranging from salsa and other Latin genres to hip hop to R&B (usually in that order of prominence). At night, occasionally you can hear a bit of punk-related genres if you catch the skateboarders at Riverbank State Park. There is a lady that often dances to the R&B she loves (sometimes on headphones, sometimes through a speaker) around 138^th and Broadway. Neighborhoods create and reinforce communal identities through sound. That sound can provide a sense of belonging; but it can also be used to suggest who belongs and who doesn’t (who fits in the neighborhood and who will remain a stranger). The guys playing dominoes create a virtual room for themselves with the music they love. The skateboarders create a zone that belongs to them (and perhaps slightly intimidates others—or maybe not). Music can also be used as a commodity in certain areas: buskers on the subway; small jazz combos in Central Park.
   2. Choose any park, neighborhood, or venue (church, bar, restaurant, nightclub) and create an ethnography of how that site employs sound and music on the day you were there to observe. You only need go there once for at least an hour or two (but stay as long as you want and find productive). Take notes; be observant; be somewhat sociological and philosophical in your outlook.
   3. Your only restrictions: Do NOT use the neighborhood surrounding City College and do NOT use a venue with which you are either very familiar or to which you personally contribute music (so, not your church, place of business, or neighborhood). The idea is to be something of an outsider (although I don’t expect you to leave your borough or state).
   4. If you pick a neighborhood and don’t hear much music—that’s okay. Discuss the sounds you do hear. Is the traffic loud or relatively quiet (in comparison to the city or larger area)? Are people noisy or quiet? Are there lots of relatively loud conversations or are people keeping to themselves? Do you hear a lot of car radios blaring? Is there music or other sounds coming out of stores?
   5. Some recommended sites: Central Park (especially Strawberry Fields, and the areas where jazz bands and buskers set up); Washington Square Park; the stairs in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; churches during services; Little Island Park (lots of free shows); subway stations with buskers (especially Grand Central, Penn Station, and Times Square); Times Square; bars/restaurants with jukeboxes or DJs; department stores and malls (sometimes with Muzak, sometimes with DJs); coffeeshops; karaoke and open-mic nights. But really, any place will work if you keep your ears open and are creative in your ideas regarding sound.
   6. Avoid mere listing of the sounds that occur. Interpret!! Be creative. Be analytical. Talk about how people interact with sound, produce sound, enjoy or act dismissively toward sound.