The research methods and instruments which I used to describe and analyse p'ansori performances include learning by performing, participant observation, recordings, structured and open interviews, archival research and historical scholarship. All data were analysed using various methods and theoretical perspectives developed by scholars in various disciplines such as ethnomusicology, musicology, sociology, comparative literature, linguistics, semiotics and social linguistics, which, in turn, were combined in the context of the theoretical model used here.
In this case the model is used to illustrate my study of p'ansori, Ch'unhyang-ga in particular, in relation to the full spectrum of influences that range from the specific to the general. It included detailed descriptions and analysis of p'ansori texts, music, p'ansori terminology, individual styles, schools, various performance settings, aesthetics and relationships with other related genres. It also covered a variety of wider contexts such as social institutions associated with various systems of patronage and education, political, social and historical changes and cross-cultural influences. This was done in an attempt to understand the relationships between the processes of ‘making music' and ‘making sense of music' in different social situations and cultural and historical contexts (Um 1992).
Mantle Hood's theory of ‘bi-musicality' is a useful methodological tool in the study of music. However, the notion of ‘practice' is not limited only to the performers who make use of their technical devices and artistic knowledge in their creation of a particular performance. It is, likewise, found in the audiences who participate in this performance event because the audience also ‘performs' as noted by Blacking (1987:35). It follows, therefore, that theories of practice posited by Bourdieu and de Certeau could also be used as one of the methods and analytical tools for studying the performing arts of Asia-or anywhere else in the world. Moreover, as illustrated in my analysis of a p'ansori performance, practice can be located in all the mediums of expression such as music, text and bodily movements as well as various agents and contexts such as musicians, dancers, audiences, mediators, social institutions, the wider society and outside world. These mediums, agents and contexts associated with the processes of production and consumption of performing arts interact, appropriate, compete and negotiate with each other, producing multiple layers of practice.
However, some questions still remain to be addressed. How is practice associated with the performing arts different from everyday practice as understood by Bourdieu and de Certeau? And if there is a difference are there certain specific patterns to be found in practice associated with the performing arts that distinguish them from everyday practice? And if there are differences-why?
It is also important to note that researchers, either as outsiders or insiders, can never place themselves completely outside of the dialectic processes. Ethnomusicologists and anthropologists often become a part of the processes of composition, performance, and transmission. For example, Steven Feld (1982) composed and performed Kaluli songs which he studied. Kay Kaufman Shelemay (1997) also reports that her academic research and recordings of musics from the Syrian Jewish community in New York city were often used by this migrant community to transmit their music to their younger generations. P'ansori scholars are also part of the processes which they study. During my fieldwork in the Korean communities in the former Soviet Union and China I was often asked to perform traditional Korean music by these Korean migrants. I have given lectures on traditional and contemporary Korean music to the students and teachers of the College of Arts in Yanbian, where I undertook fieldwork in 1998. So I have become their informant who performs and transmits my cultural knowledge of Korea and other Korean migrant communities in the former Soviet Union and the United States.