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17 November 2006

cjm: listening experience for the city of Bloomington and beyond. Participants in the CLP meet twice a month in my modest living quarters here in the heartbeat of America. Those who show up at my door are asked to bring a piece of recorded music to share within a group setting, and introduce it to the group. As a student of ethnomusicology, I am hoping to use this site as a way to learn more about the everyday listener of recorded music. Ethnomusicologists traditionally authorize the performer of music as cultural expert which he/she studies. This project believes, along with Plato, that "the parent or inventor of an art is not always the best judge of the utility or inutility of his own inventions to the user of them." As this project develops, I intend to experiment with the environment in which people talk about and experience music as a group. Therefore, this is not a traditional ethnographic research site, but can be considered a method of “design ethnography.” Please feel free to join the online conversation no matter where you live.