In my opinion, the main idea of this chapter was that ethnographers directly affect the people that they study. In other words, it is impossible to be a completely neutral observer with no effect on those observed. Shelemay offers examples from her work with Jews of Syrian descent who live in Brooklyn, New York, such as writing to the US Immigration Service to help a visiting cantor from Israel remain in the United States on a permanent basis. Shelemay knew that the cantor's influence carried a "different stream of Sephardic tradition" (146) and would thus alter the "distinctive Aleppo musical tradition sustained in Brooklyn" (146), but helped him immigrate anyways. Presumably, this action (by an ethnomusicologist) has affected the music of the Brooklyn Jews (the culture being studied). Through their work, ethnomusicologists also preserve the musics (and associated cultural traditions) of the groups they study, help memorialize those who perform the music, and mediate the transmission of the music, to both outsiders relative to that culture and also those within the culture.
Discussion question: Should ethnomusicologists be concerned that they may be preserving a tradition that, without them, may have "died off"? In other words, should they be worried about the possibility of altering the very traditions that they are studying?
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