Reading: Autoethnography

Reading: Brydie-Leigh Bartleet and Carolyn Elis, “Introduction”, Making Autoethnography Sing/ Making Music Personal, Australia: Australian Academic Press, 2009

Started this book hoping that will bring me more insight about how to write an autoethnography, I think I am completely drawn into the genre and really favoured the beauty of it.

Autoethnography is essentially an autobiographical genre that links the personal, cultural, social and the political that emphasised the “intimate participation, interaction and the manifestation” in the medium that one intended to explore. (Bartleet and Elis, 2009, 7) The genre projects a high-level of reflexity from the practitioner to relate their artform with their first-hand experience rather than merely analysing the finish- product. I found this form of writing speaks to me a lot.

I am like an open-book. Most of my work reflect my qualities and personal experience, especially my composition, I often about my encountering in life. Part of it is merely because I am very bad at lying but I think my emotion and the events that ignite my creativity is very major component of my work. Since if these events didn’t took place on the first place, it will not leads on to my creative process surely. This sense of release through sharing is certainly more apparently to me since the day that I was hit by a car and betrayed my best friend simulatneously, probably one the most tormenting days in my life. The impact of that series of events hit me physically and mentally terribly, hence explains why most of my recent work (Both Composition and Performance) since then are often correlated to death, betrayal, memories, reborn, etc. I also found my release in just sharing with people about things that I found difficult in life.

Bartleet and Elis also mentioned about the reason why autoethnographers and musician are reluctant sharing the personal aspect of their work in their writings or their invulnerability. They suggested that autoethnographers hesitates to the reveal their veil as there is no return once their life in exposed to the world. (Bartleet and Elis, 2009, 6) I understand their concerns but I believe there is no way that facts can be fully concealled anyways and I often find it more anxious when I intended to hide myself. But I respect that it is their personal choice as not everyone is comfortable to openly sharing their experience (some of them are even woeful to them), especially to the wider public.

This project might not necessarily related to the misery that I encountered a few months ago. However, even something more important, my world- Singing. I always think that I would rather die if (touch wood) I can’t sing anymore one day. The project that Genie and I are working is about the Swedish dramatic Soprano Birgit Nilsson, one of opera singers that I absolutely adored and modelled on in artistic practice. It is a pleasure that I can pay tribute her through this project at her 20th anniversary of death and celebrate her contribution to opera through in rather unexpected idiom. For a project with this strong sense of intimacy to myself, I think autoethnography might be a good fit.

Reference:

Brydie-Leigh Bartleet and Carolyn Elis, “Introduction”, Making Autoethnography Sing/ Making Music Personal, Australia: Australian Academic Press, 2009