Understanding Titon (ch. 2)

Titon, throughout his paper, presents the idea that understanding is more important than explanation, and that the history of ethnomusicology has been laden with explanations and data-gathering, and only now is moving towards a focus on understanding and experience. In shifting the focus and position to understanding, he emphasizes people over objects, interpretation over analysis, and humanities over science. His definition of music as a socially constructed, cultural phenomenon also reflects an idea that music is a group activity, and that the self merges with the others until the reemergence of universal knowledge. In using this definition of music defining people, giving people knowledge, and bringing them together, Titon makes a case for music as a replacement for language as the basic form of communication. Music is about the person and experience, not about analysis and comparison.
Titon also addresses the fundamental flaws of current ethnomusicology: the authority of representation, the quest narrative, and the incompatibility with poststructuralist thought. He acknowledges that he cannot give adequate answers for these flaws, but at the same time makes note that the disappearance of self comes with the experience of music-making, and that the communal experience can answer for the ethnomusicologist’s authority and lack of self. In the postscript, Titon mentions that in experiencing music as a visitor, one avoids the quest-narrative and instead musicology is based on visiting and friendship. Having dealt with the three main flaws of ethnomusicology, Titon ends with saying that fieldwork brings mutual gain and shared experiences.
Titon often takes an idealistic view of ethnomusicology, equating music and field relationships directly with friendship. He also writes of the naiveté that an ideal field relationship will always result in friendship. If such a relationship, one that is more contractual or involves student/teacher roles, ends with little mutual gain, is the study flawed? Does the ethnographer still have authority?