{"id":768,"date":"2020-04-29T23:54:09","date_gmt":"2020-04-30T04:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/?p=768"},"modified":"2020-04-29T23:54:09","modified_gmt":"2020-04-30T04:54:09","slug":"is-research-ever-that-easy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/2020\/04\/29\/is-research-ever-that-easy\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Research Ever THAT Easy?"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_776\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-776\" style=\"width: 219px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-776 \" src=\"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1254\/2020\/04\/Ravel-251x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"219\" height=\"262\" data-wp-editing=\"1\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1254\/2020\/04\/Ravel-251x300.jpg 251w, https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1254\/2020\/04\/Ravel-126x150.jpg 126w, https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1254\/2020\/04\/Ravel-768x918.jpg 768w, https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1254\/2020\/04\/Ravel-480x574.jpg 480w, https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1254\/2020\/04\/Ravel.jpg 780w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 219px) 100vw, 219px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-776\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Maurice Ravel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Each research project carries its own set of difficulties. If you are researching with a lot of sources at your disposal, it is often difficult to decide which are the most important and which you should leave out when making your claim. Research on an obscure topic where limited to almost no scholarship exists can often leave the researcher feeling dissatisfied, frustrated, or even hopeless. Here, I dare to make a broad claim and say that research is never too simple.<\/p>\n<p>Ravel\u2019s <em>Chansons mad\u00e9casses<\/em> is an interesting research assignment for me. The scholarly resources that are available that explicitly discuss this piece most directly address issues of exoticism and primitivism within the songs.<a href=\"#_ftn1\" name=\"_ftnref1\">[1]<\/a> However, I really want to explore a new side of the piece that hasn\u2019t necessarily been analyzed with the same depth. After all, we should look at musical works from a variety of different perspectives. While I haven\u2019t chosen which lens I want to look at <em>Chansons mad\u00e9casses<\/em> with, I know I want to challenge myself and try to look at the piece through a non-obvious lens.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Maurice Ravel - Chansons mad\u00e9casses [With score]\" width=\"580\" height=\"326\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/bb1Swd9xrl0?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Searching for and discovering new claims is something that I have been thinking a lot about as I do research for this last paper. In a lot of cases, it seems like scholarship only approaches certain musical works from one or two perspectives without considering other factors that could\u2019ve largely contributed to the creation and performance of the piece.\u00a0Of course, many different perspectives or lenses we can use to analyze works will fall short. But this is what makes research so exciting; finding a new claim to make about the topic you are researching and supporting or even discrediting it with evidence that you discover. As I dive deeper into the history and performance of Chansons mad\u00e9casses, Ravel, and his relationship with patron <a href=\"https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/biography\/Elizabeth-Penn-Sprague-Coolidge\">Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge,<\/a> I look forward to finalizing a claim and discovering something new.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-772 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1254\/2020\/04\/Research-Memes-300x236.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"236\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1254\/2020\/04\/Research-Memes-300x236.jpg 300w, https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1254\/2020\/04\/Research-Memes-150x118.jpg 150w, https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1254\/2020\/04\/Research-Memes-480x378.jpg 480w, https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1254\/2020\/04\/Research-Memes.jpg 500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref1\" name=\"_ftn1\">[1]<\/a> James, Richard S. \u201cRavel&#8217;s \u2018Chansons Mad\u00e9casses:&#8221; Ethnic Fantasy or Ethnic Borrowing?\u201d The Musical Quarterly 74, no. 3 (1990): 360\u201384.- This is a source that appears at the top of the list when you type \u201c<em>Chansons Mad\u00e9casses\u201d<\/em> into the St. Olaf library catalyst search engine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Each research project carries its own set of difficulties. If you are researching with a lot of sources at your disposal, it is often difficult to decide which are the most important and which you should leave out when making your claim. Research on an obscure topic where limited to almost no scholarship exists can [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3518,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3518"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=768"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":782,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768\/revisions\/782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}