Ethnographic focus on identifying shared cultural practice often obscures the fact that many times such choices result from individual desire and taste. This chapter illustrates the importance of such personal choices and explores a means for including individuality in an explanation of shared cultural practice, similar in some ways to what the anthropologist Lila Abu-Lughod has called “the ethnography of the particular.” Despite variations in performance practices, O'odham listeners uniformly value waila because it connects them to each other and “makes them happy.” The focus on how and why waila musicians play the accordion the way they do show how the music also links O'odham to non-O'odham and to much wider social, musical, and even economic circles. Yet even as waila musicians engage with the non-O'odham world, they simultaneously hold it at bay.
This article examines the musical lives of children in Mexico. Mexican children enjoy music for the interactions it promotes with friends, family, and people they admire. Musical activities also help them reconcile the contrasting worlds that shape their lives. From centralized, government-sponsored programs and formal instruction, to regional drama and individual play, children learn from a very young age that there are many ways to be Mexican in the modern world. Ultimately, being musical is a way for children to connect with others. Despite new media and technology, the traditional method of learning music from one’s parents or close relatives, and by performing alongside them in family and community events, persists and influences even formal music instruction in conservatory and school settings.
We have no method of teaching, only ways of learning,” says Angelo Joaquin Jr., founder of the Young Waila Musicians Workshop. He was not talking about string instruction, but the philosophy implicit in his remarks summarizes some of the valuable lessons string teachers might receive from the Tohono O'odham Indian nation.
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