ABSTRACT
This chapter shows patterns existed across some student populations, expressed in the form of enjoyment and anxiety during different kinds of performing ethnomusicology. Musical emotions are thus culturally conditioned. People in different cultures and contexts are believed to learn to associate particular emotions with different situations and to conceptualise them appropriately. Emotions are thus shaped by sociocultural and extra-musical factors. Many ethnomusicologists felt a certain tension when introducing students to the exuberance of the world's musics whilst wishing to provide meaningful performance experiences with the limited musical equipment and time available at university. Music that was difficult to perform was thus often regarded as serious, professional music. Besides perceptions of simple versus difficult performance in ethnomusicology, students also communicated dichotomous perspectives between new musical encounters and those musics they were already familiar with.
