The Study of Ethnomusicology

Thirty-one Issues and ConceptsBy BRUNO NETTL

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS PRESS

Copyright © 2005 Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-252-07278-9

Contents

Preface………………………………………………………………………………..xi1. The Harmless Drudge: Defining Ethnomusicology……………………………………………32. The Art of Combining Tones: The Music Concept……………………………………………163. Inspiration and Perspiration: The Creative Process……………………………………….274. The Universal Language: Universals of Music……………………………………………..425. The Nonuniversal Language: Varieties of Music……………………………………………506. Apples and Oranges: Comparative Study…………………………………………………..607. I Can’t Say a Thing until I’ve Seen the Score: Transcription………………………………748. In the Speech Mode: Contemplating Repertories……………………………………………929. The Most Indefatigable Tourists of the World: Tunes and Their Relationships…………………11310. Come Back and See Me Next Tuesday: Essentials of Fieldwork……………………………….13311. You Will Never Understand This Music: Insiders and Outsiders……………………………..14912. Hanging on for Dear Life: Archives and Preservation……………………………………..16113. I Am the Greatest: Ordinary and Exceptional Musicians……………………………………17214. You Call That Fieldwork? Redefining the “Field”…………………………………………18415. What Do You Think You’re Doing? The Host’s Perspective…………………………………..19716. Music and “That Complex Whole”: Music in Culture………………………………………..21517. The Meat-and-Potatoes Book: Musical Ethnography…………………………………………23218. Music Hath Charms: Uses and Functions………………………………………………….24419. In the Beginning: On the Origins of Music………………………………………………25920. The Continuity of Change: On People Changing Their Music…………………………………27221. Recorded, Printed, Written, Oral: Traditions……………………………………………29122. The Basic Unit of All Culture and Civilization: Signs and Symbols…………………………30223. Location, Location, Location! Interpreting Geographic Distribution………………………..32024. The Whys of Musical Style: Determinants………………………………………………..33925. I’ve Never Heard a Horse Sing: Musical Taxonomies……………………………………….35726. The Creatures of Jubal: Instruments……………………………………………………37627. How Do You Get to Carnegie Hall? Teaching and Learning…………………………………..38828. I’m a Stranger Here Myself: Women’s Music, Women in Music………………………………..40429. Diversity and Difference: Some Minorities………………………………………………41930. A New Era: The 1990s and Beyond……………………………………………………….43131. The Shape of the Story: Remarks on History……………………………………………..443References……………………………………………………………………………..455Index………………………………………………………………………………….495

Chapter One

The Harmless Drudge: Defining Ethnomusicology

Definitions

For years, people have been asking me the question: “You’re an ethnomusicologist?” Shortly after 1950 it was likely to be accompanied by expressions of wonder and of the belief that I was somehow involved with “folk” music, with “primitive music,” and particularly with “ancient music,” and also that I must have a great deal of companionship with a tape recorder. By 1960 the questioner would likely bring up participation in an Indonesian gamelan, or perhaps an ability to play many of the world’s odd instruments. In the 1970s, the conversation might well include the term “ethnic” music or even the etymologically outrageous “ethnomusic,” and in the eighties and nineties, free association might lead to “diversity” and “world music.”

I have always found it hard to come to a precise, concise, and readily intelligible definition. Dictionaries differ considerably but espouse limited views. In the 120 years in which modern ethnomusicology can be said to have existed, since pioneer works such as those of Ellis (1885), Baker (1882), and Stumpf (1886), attitudes and orientations have changed greatly, and so has the name, from something very briefly called Musikologie (in the 1880s),to “comparative musicology” (through about 1950), then to “ethno-musicology” (1950–ca. 1956), quickly to “ethnomusicology” (removing the hyphen actually was an ideological move trying to signal disciplinary independence),with suggestions such as “cultural musicology” (Kerman 1985) and “socio-musicology” (Feld 1984) occasionally thrown in. The changes in name paralleled changes in intellectual orientation and emphasis.

It is difficult to find a single, simple definition, to which most people in this field would subscribe, and thus ethnomusicologists have been perhaps excessively concerned with defining themselves. Alan P. Merriam, the scholar in the history of ethnomusicology most concerned with definition and the associated problems of basic orientation, frequently (Merriam 1960, 1964: 3–36, 1969b, 1975) cited the need for ethnomusicologists to look carefully at what they had done and wished to do in order to move in concerted fashion toward their goals. In a major essay discussing the history of definitions, Merriam (1977a) actually brought together a large number of separate statements defining the limits, the major thrust, the practicality, and the ideology of ethnomusicology (see also Myers 1992: 3, 7–9; Simon 1978).

There are various types of definitions: Some tell what each ethnomusicologist must do or be in order to merit the title, and some synthesize what the entire group does. Others focus on what has transpired in terms of research activity, or on what should in fact have been done, or what must eventually be done. They define in terms of a body of data to be gathered and studied, or of activities undertaken by typical scholars, or again by the questions that are asked of the raw data. Some seek to broaden limits, including within the scope of ethnomusicology all sorts of things also claimed by other fields or disciplines, while others envision narrow specialization. A scholar finding order among all of these definitions (Merriam cites over forty, but he stopped in 1976) would surely become what Samuel Johnson called (referring to himself, the lexicographer) a “harmless drudge.” It’s not, lest you’ve been misinterpreting the title of this chapter, the ethnomusicologists who claim or deserve that title.

What, specifically, are some of these definitions, and how can one group them? In their briefest form, without elaboration or commentary: Those who seek—or sought—to define ethnomusicology by the material that is contemplated have opted for one of these alternatives: (1) folk music, and music that used to be called “primitive,” that is, tribal, indigenous, or possibly ancient music; (2) non-Western and folk music; (3) all music outside the investigator’s own culture; (4) all music that lives in oral tradition; (5) all music of a given locality, as in “the ethnomusicology of Tokyo”; (6) the music that given population groups regard as their particular property, for example, “black” music of the United States; (7) all contemporary music (Chase 1958); and (8) all human music. Those focusing on type of activity might choose among the following: (1) comparative study (of musical systems and cultures), a basically musicological activity; (2) comprehensive analysis of the music and musical culture of one society—essentially anthropological; (3) the study of musics as systems, perhaps systems of signs, an activity related to linguistics or semiotics; (4) the study of music in or as culture, or perhaps music in its cultural context, with techniques derived from anthropology, often called “anthropology of music”; and (5) historical study of musics outside the realm of Western classical music, using approaches of historians, area studies specialists, and folklorists. Definitions that look at our ultimate goals might include (1) the search for universals; (2) the description of “all factors which generate the pattern of sound produced by a single composer or society” (Blacking 1970: 69); and even (3) a “science of music history,” aiming at the establishment of laws governing musical development and change. This sampling provides an idea of the number and variety of definitions and approaches. Beyond this, however, the disciplinary identity of ethnomusicology is often the subject of debate. Opinions: Ethnomusicology is (1) a full-fledged discipline; (2) a branch of musicology, or (3) of anthropology; (4) an interdisciplinary field; (5) the kind of all-encompassing discipline that “musicology” ought to be, but hasn’t become.

No wonder that preoccupation with identity has been a major activity. When attending meetings of the Society of Ethnomusicology, the largest organization of the field, I used to be struck by the number of specialized papers that began with statements giving the speakers’ definition of and general orientation toward the field. Since about 1985, however, the obsession with defining ethnomusicology has declined, and some have decided to stop worrying about it while others have come to agree on a mainstream of thrusts and emphases. One might also define a field of research by the kinds of things about which its people argue and debate; in a sense, this series of essays is itself a somewhat clumsy attempt to define ethnomusicology in terms of some of its abiding issues, concepts, questions, and problem areas of general concern.

Who They Are and What They Actually Do

There may be many definitions, but what those who call themselves ethnomusicologists or who otherwise associate themselves with this field actually do has been fairly clear. Who are they? The Society for Ethnomusicology has been conducting a survey as yet incomplete at the time of this writing. Descriptions of the ethnomusicological population between around 1950 and 1980 may be found in Myers (1992) and Hood (1971). Let me try an impressionistic overview of the present. Of those working in this field since about 1980, many have an initial background in academic music, as students of performance, theory, or composition; in North America, this may culminate in a bachelor’s degree in music. But increasingly, they have also come from backgrounds in popular music, and some are motivated by prolonged residence—perhaps as teenagers—abroad. A good many also come to this field from exposure to third-world cultures as members of the Peace Corps, as teachers of English abroad, in missionary work. Typically, they seem to me to have been turned on to the field by the love of or fascination with some music. There usually soon follows some kind of exposure to a culture or society, and then often more formal study of culture, broadly speaking, perhaps including graduate study of anthropology, or of a field of area studies such as South Asia, Africa, the Middle East. Some turn to ethnomusicology after a period of living in a non-Western culture as teachers of Western music. Many students of ethnomusicology very quickly form a specialized allegiance to the music of a particular culture or area, and even a particular genre of music—Plains Indian powwow dances, Javanese gamelan music, North Indian classical instrumental music, Moroccan rai.

Most ethnomusicologists, in any event, undertake graduate study in this field; there aren’t many (though there once were) scholars in other disciplines—music history, anthropology—who, in midcareer as professionals, switched lanes and moved to ethnomusicology. Graduate curricula in ethnomusicology vary considerably. Some of the leading ones are free-standing programs in their universities, many are attached to music departments and may be considered one of a number of specializations within musicology, and a few are in anthropology, popular culture, media studies, and folklore departments or programs. But while the orientations of these programs in North America varied greatly when they first came into existence in the 1950s and 1960s, and they still differ considerably, there has gradually developed a kind of mainstream, a central core of preparation, that includes some study of performance of the music in which one plans to undertake research—and perhaps incidentally also performance of other noncanonic musics that may be available—and considerable reading and study of anthropology, and of anthropologically related theory. Near the end of one’s graduate study one ordinarily undertakes field research in a society or culture or subculture, or perhaps a genre or repertory in which one later becomes known as a specialist. This dissertation fieldwork, which is preceded by cultural and linguistic preparation, usually involves a year or more of residence in the field venue. Analysis of collected data used to include automatically the transcription of recordings into musical notation, and this is still important, though the arsenal of techniques has been widened. Arriving at musical insights, and—more difficult—developing a procedure for the analysis of human activities and attitudes revolving about the musical sounds, should follow, and the final stage in this research process is the interpretation of data in accordance with certain defined theoretical approaches or positions.

Most ethnomusicologists, Ph.D. in hand, seek teaching positions in higher education, though other kinds of work—librarianship, museology, the recording industry, public service of various sorts, publishing—are also available. Ethnomusicologists appointed to teaching positions are almost always assigned a course in “musics of the world,” or at least something going far beyond the scope of their specialized research, along with something more in their particular line of expertise. Advanced courses may be devoted to world areas—for example, South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa—or they may be topical (e.g., world perspectives of children’s music, improvised music around the world, or the study—on a global basis—of musical change). Interestingly, it seems that in middle age, many ethnomusicologists add a second world area to their fields of expertise; for myself, I started with Native American music and, at the age of thirty-nine, added the classical music of Iran. Among my colleagues, Thomas Turino, first an Andeanist, added the music of East Africa, and Charles Capwell added Indonesia to South Asia. Paul Berliner, an authority on East African mbira music, became, as well, an authority on jazz. I wish I could assert that elderly ethnomusicologists become wiser and more inclined to take broad and long views of the world of music, but I’m not so sure.

A typical ethnomusicologist’s profile? Despite all diversity, a good many of my colleagues will recognize themselves here. As for the definitions cited above, there may be a lot of them, but ethnomusicologists really aren’t all that different from each other. There is often a gap between what ethnomusicologists do and what, by their own definition, they claim to do or hope some day to accomplish.

What most of them actually do is to carry out research about non-Western, folk, popular, and vernacular music, taking into account both the music itself, as sound, and how it interacts with other things that people do—that’s really what we mean by “music in culture.” However we define these terms, they are what authors in such journals as Ethnomusicology, World of Music, and Asian Music actually write about. The definition of ethnomusicology as the study of non-Western and folk music, although widely criticized, is descriptively correct. On the other hand, the definition as study of music outside one’s own culture is not, for Asian and African scholars who call themselves ethnomusicologists typically do study their own music (see chapter 14 for what “own” may mean), but when they study the European music that is outside their own culture, they prefer avoiding the term, instead calling themselves music historians or just musicologists.

Ethnomusicologists are supremely interested in music as a component of culture. For some time—perhaps the period between 1950 and 1970 is the most indicative—they tended to divide themselves into two groups, frequently at odds, one concentrating on the music “itself,” the other on the cultural context. The first typically felt that they were properly studying the main point of focus, the music itself, in its cultural context, looking down on these other “contextualists” as amateurs unable to deal directly with music, while the others, espousing an anthropological approach, considered their opposite numbers to be naive, unable even to understand the musical artifact because they could not approach it as a product of culture, and unwilling to deal with musical concepts, attitudes, or forms of behavior other than the piece of music itself. After about 1980, the two groups tended to merge, but even in earlier times, I do not know of any ethnomusicologists who did not, in their total commitments, have a major interest in music as an aspect of human culture. Anthropologists, as a basic technique of their profession, know how to analyze the interaction of various domains in culture; musicologists are distinguished by their fundamental ability to make sophisticated analyses of musical artifacts. Most ethnomusicologists try to be both.

Most academic ethnomusicologists in North America associate themselves with music schools and departments; but many of the intellectual leaders come from anthropology. Yet, as the following chapters examine principal issues that ethnomusicologists confront, it will become evident that this is a field which frequently asks questions that are actually fundamental to musicology, the discipline that encompasses all kinds of music scholarship. Of course, many scholars concerned with music quite justly see themselves not as musicologists at all, but as anthropologists, folklorists, sociologists, linguists; and yet, when engaging in ethnomusicological work, they are contributing to this central core of musicological activity (see the essays in Blum 1987; Cook and Everist 1999). To be sure, they are at the same time making contributions to their home disciplines, such as anthropology and folklore, but typically their findings are not as central to these fields as they are to musicology. Ethnomusicology may function well as an independent field, and surely it has multiple disciplinary associations, but I strongly believe that ethnomusicological findings, insights, and theories, no matter to whatever other disciplines they may also contribute, have made their greatest contributions to musicology.

The first generations of ethnomusicologists, from around 1900 to maybe 1970, were seen as academic oddballs involved in an arcane subject of no interest outside the academy (or even inside). After 1960, they tried to make their musics known by issuing records and promoting concerts (of, say, Indian, Japanese, Arabic, West African musics), and I would assert that they played a role in the rapidly increasing interchanges of musics that led to the styles and the culture of “world music” as a category in the listening habits of Western society. So now, while few outsiders actually know exactly what it is that they do in their lives, ethnomusicologists are a concept and a term known to all levels of education, in the mass media, in areas of government. The world of music has changed incredibly since the 1980s, and ethnomusicologists are recognized as having contributed to these changes, and sought as interpreters of what has happened. Their work has contributed greatly to what is now taught in public school music programs, to the variety of musics available on recordings to all, and to the resources used by composers of concert music.

(Continues…)

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