Meet Ed Wolf

Interview with Juan Eduardo Wolf, conducted by John Wood, May 1, 2024

John Wood – How did you get into ethnomusicology?

Ed Wolf – People come to ethnomusicology in many, many different ways. But I had an advisor who used to tell me, fundamentally, our research ends up being about ourselves, in some way, shape or form. We’re trying to answer a question or something that we think about ourselves. And in my particular case, I ended up finding ethnomusicology, because I didn’t know it was a thing. What I did know was that I was an immigrant 1.1 or whatever generation that happens to be. I was born in Chile and then came as a baby, and then spent my time trying to figure out, like, well, how does this event that meant that I was born in this other space and with parents who were inculturated differently have an impact on me. And the one way I could resolve it—I mean, I did have the language, which was lucky. And then my mother started showing me a few guitar chords, and I realized that I had this access to this space, and that helped me understand and sing. And obviously I got positive reinforcement from extended family and all the rest of the stuff for doing that. But then in high school—you know, with the situation of being Latinx in the U.S. It tends to have sort of large immigrant groups depending on where you go, and everything was about Spanish and Mexican. So if you speak Spanish, you must be Mexican. So then it becomes one of these things where I was like, “Well, you know what? There is a lot more to Latin American music than just Mexican music.” So I can play you a Mexican song. But I’m also going to play you a Venezuelan song, etcetera. Becuase didn’t want to overblow Chile, but at the same time… So then that just fed into this whole thing of me understanding what are the nuances of all these things. And eventually that led me to ethnomusicology.

JW – That’s beautiful. I can see all these threads going back to little Ed.

EW – Yeah. I mean, it’s a fundamental question of trying to figure out who I was. You know, I have this little picture—I don’t know if I showed it to you in class or whatever—but I have a picture of one of my first friends in Cal Davis sitting next to me. I think we’re both in diapers. And he’s a friend of mine, and he was from Uganda, and we’re just kind of hanging out together. And so what do I end up studying? Oh, you know, people of African descent in Chile. Like, what is the connection between these two kinds of spaces? So things that make an impact, you know, when you’re a kid. I have a feeling that has something to do with it, besides just listening in these communities, finding out what felt like home, that kind of stuff.

JW – What do you think is special about the (ethno)musicology program here at UO?

EW – We’re lucky to have people in music tech, in composition, who value ethnomusicology and push their students in the ethnomusicology direction. Really special? The presence of Habib Iddrisu. I am able to pull a book off the ethnomusicology shelf, open it, and have him go, “That’s my cousin. That’s my uncle.” That’s his family. He grew up in that tradition. And if you’re a young student here and you’re interested in music and you do not take Dema, I think you’ve missed out. It’s not unique in the sense that there are other places that have people who have been born into traditions and that. What is unique is that Habib is a tenure-track faculty, that usually they get hired as adjuncts. But Habib has this very interesting history of being able to have a PhD in performance studies from Northwester, which gives him a different profile than other folks. Has he been supported in the way that he might have expected, or that a professor in Ghana of his caliber would have been? No. But in Ghana they value different things.

But I think that I’ve seen a growing interest among students. We’ve created this specialization [in ethnomusicology], so that has allowed people to be interested in doing things. I’ve had several undergraduate students—our music history degree was “History and Literature,” and it became “History and Culture.” And so that undergraduate major is now growing. Those are the kinds of things that we do here and are exciting. We have a growing number of ensemble opportunities. And one of the things that’s always been said about the graduate program at UO is that you get to play while you’re here, which may not be true in other places in academia. In Indiana, we didn’t really have ensembles in ethnomusicology. So I went and played with the Latin American music ensemble, which happened to be in the School of Music way across campus from us. And again, I played my classic role as the guy who plays the weird instrument that, you know, gives just that shimmer of difference. But they didn’t want us to teach those kinds of things.

We’re teaching ensembles that are accepting, able to have people experience other forms of music making, while still learning about them academically. And I think that’s a good model that is, I’ll say, relatively newish, because there has tended to be a focus on, “You learn how to play, and da, da, da,” so you can become completely bi-musical in this way, or you’re going to just sit here and read all about it. And I think we have a nice balance in those ensemble programs.

We have our strikes, and we have things that we can work on, just like any other program. If someone’s a die-hard, who wants to be an ethnomusicologist, then of course this is not necessarily the place for them. If you want to be able to explore ethnomusicology in addition to having a strong musicology foundation, then I think this is a good spot for you.

JW – And if someone got that specialization in ethnomusicology, or got their foundation here, and maybe went somewhere else to get a degree in ethnomusicology, what might they be able to do with their degree besides teaching?

EW – Oh. Yeah. Again, this is another kind of perspective thing. So, you know, first thing people are going to say, “Oh, you teach.” Yes, you teach. OK. And then you could say also another default has quite often been that you could do a lot of public culture work. You work in museums. You could work at the Smithsonian. You could do Folkways. You could do these kinds of things. You could be the promoter for these kinds of things. You could work within many state governments. You know those kinds of things. We have a folklore program here that has a masters degree. Many of the people who have come out of that have taken ethno[musicology] classes and then have gone on to be that state folklorist for Washington or Utah or Idaho. We do a pretty good job of placing those folks out of our program. And that might not seem like a big deal, but, generally speaking, most states have one. We have the Oregon Folklife Network here. So if you are an ethnomusicologist, those could be sort of the places that you could be expected to go. But, of course, what we’d really like to say, in terms of the same kind of way I was talking about community: what do I think ethnomusicologists are skilled to be able to do? Right? And again, “What jobs am I qualified for” often is the [presumed] thing. [What if we asked:] “What kind of job would I like to have?” and let me create or find the job in that space because of these skills that I have. I am able to, you know, most often speak other languages, or, more importantly, able to be intercultural in ways that involve close listening, being able to negotiate, working as a team; you know, think about all those kinds of things and be nuanced and write well and do all those things that actually are strengths in many different spaces. So again, you know, is the question the right one?

JW – This is great. I like how you’re deconstructing this. We’ll throw one more curveball at you. See if you can break this question down. What is your go-to coffee or tea order?

EW – What I wish I could say, more often, is tai chi. So when I have the time, what I will do is, I will sneak out at lunch, and I will go down to the little amphitheater in the corner down there, and I will just do my Yang 24, three times.

 

 

Read the longer version of this interview.