ABSTRACT
Ethnomusicologists, much like our not-so-distant cousins—journalists, griots, poets, folksingers, novelists—are singers of tales. We often travel far (to Africa in my case) in order to fulfill a deep-seeded curiosity about how others are in the world musically. We return home laden with equipment bags packed with stories, experiences, and memories. We compete to present our findings at academic conferences where each of us listens intently, learning from each other as if attempting to put together a challenging jigsaw puzzle of the world’s musical cultures and traditions. In our classrooms we teach and pass along these stories, writing articles and books about our experiences along the way, convinced that the world will be a better place for the sharing of our memories and of our cultural awareness. Many of us—myself included—feel that in our privilege to share in and make meaning out of the musical lives of people around the world, we are the most fortunate of all storytellers.
