132 Notes Goffman, from whom I earned a PhD at Berkeley, transformed my adolescent Bronx street smarts into an adult ethnographic facility. His lectures and writings made it clear that a glance or handshake could be as systematically described as a class structure or the concentric zone theory of urban growth. Erving first showed me what mundane sociological detail could be. His many extraordinary books are widely available. Sacks, a lawyer, sociologist, and founder of the discipline of con- versation analysis, was a close friend and then teaching colleague, from graduate students days at Berkeley in 1961 until his fatal auto collision in 1975, while on the faculty at UC Irvine. It’s impossible to attribute particular indebtedness for particular inclinations, so perva- sive was his influence. But especially important were his elegant meth- ods of warranting the relevance of social facts as matters that are methodically known about and produced by the members of a soci- ety, first and foremost, well before sociology comes along; and the sheer range of his discoveries of orderliness in the most minute forms. Goffman first showed us what details might be like, but he was a sort of ethologist, while Sacks was the microbiologist. Notwithstanding my misgivings about using transcripts to study the activities of talk- ing, as he did, whatever acumen I have for appreciating the possibil- ity of order in the tiniest details was substantially nourished by my long association with him. His monumental, two-volume, posthu- mously published Lectures on Conversation (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991), brilliantly sculpted from his tape-recorded Irvine lectures by Dr. Gail Jefferson, is unquestionably among the most innovative, comprehensive, and rigorous documents of twentieth-century social science. Garfinkel developed a sociological perspective called “ethno- methodology.” Its theoretical speculations furnish a useful point of departure from which to simultaneously address the classical prob- lems of an objective social order while affording the actor’s perspec- tive a definitional priority. I owe the general concept of a “production account” to him, and my initial thoughts about ways to study music were influenced by our conversations. See his Studies in Ethno- methodology (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1967), and “Ethnomethodology’s Program,” Social Psychology Quarterly 59, no. 1 (1996), 5–21. 7. This and the diagrams to follow are necessarily crude. In fact, keyboard topography is characterized by a very rarely noted and yet extremely consequential feature: the distances from each white key
Goffman, from whom I earned a PhD at Berkeley, transformed
myadolescent Bronx street smarts into an adult ethnographic
facility. Hislectures and writings made it clear that a glance or
handshake couldbe as systematically described as a class structure
or the concentriczone theory of urban growth. Erving first showed
me what mundanesociological detail could be. His many extraordinary
books are widelyavailable.
Sacks, a lawyer, sociologist, and founder of the discipline of
con-versation analysis, was a close friend and then teaching
colleague,from graduate students days at Berkeley in 1961 until his
fatal autocollision in 1975, while on the faculty at UC Irvine. Its
impossible toattribute particular indebtedness for particular
inclinations, so perva-sive was his influence. But especially
important were his elegant meth-ods of warranting the relevance of
social facts as matters that aremethodically known about and
produced by the members of a soci-ety, first and foremost, well
before sociology comes along; and thesheer range of his discoveries
of orderliness in the most minute forms.Goffman first showed us
what details might be like, but he was a sortof ethologist, while
Sacks was the microbiologist. Notwithstandingmy misgivings about
using transcripts to study the activities of talk-ing, as he did,
whatever acumen I have for appreciating the possibil-ity of order
in the tiniest details was substantially nourished by mylong
association with him. His monumental, two-volume, posthu-mously
published Lectures on Conversation (Oxford: Basil Blackwell,1991),
brilliantly sculpted from his tape-recorded Irvine lectures byDr.
Gail Jefferson, is unquestionably among the most
innovative,comprehensive, and rigorous documents of
twentieth-century socialscience.
Garfinkel developed a sociological perspective called
ethno-methodology. Its theoretical speculations furnish a useful
point ofdeparture from which to simultaneously address the
classical prob-lems of an objective social order while affording
the actors perspec-tive a definitional priority. I owe the general
concept of a productionaccount to him, and my initial thoughts
about ways to study musicwere influenced by our conversations. See
his Studies in Ethno-methodology (Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice-Hall, 1967), andEthnomethodologys Program, Social
Psychology Quarterly 59, no.1 (1996), 521.
7. This and the diagrams to follow are necessarily crude. In
fact,keyboard topography is characterized by a very rarely noted
and yetextremely consequential feature: the distances from each
white key
