Introductory set Flashcards
What is ethnomusicology?
The combined study of music and anthropology - usually involving research of a musical tradition outside ones own and how it affects the community involved
What distinguishes ethnomusicologists from musicologists?
The involvement of societies outside of Western culture and the exploration of broader relations of music to a wider society
What questions might ethnomusicologist pose from a performance of Mongolian throat singers?
What is the cultural significance?
What’s its use and function?
How much is the music impacted by western I fluence/muscial exchange?
What is the specific practice?
What kind of bodily performance do we observe?
What kind of relationships emerge between musicians and physical objects?
How is our experience mediated?
Who is Christopher Small and what is he known for?
New-zealand born musician that coined the term ‘musicking’ -that of musicking (from the verb to music), meaning any activity involving or related to music performance.
What is music? 8 different views name them and their creators
1) Mousikē, Ancient Greeks - All the things the users do
2) Humanly organised sound, John Blacking - Posited as a definition for ethnomusicology
3) Organised noise, Edgard Varèse - Bird song etc.
4) Sounds, John Cage
5) Deep Listening, Pauline Oliveros - The choice of hearing music
6) (Ethno specific) Music in/as culture, Alan Merriam - Music sits in the space of culture and music produces culture
7) Knowing through sound, Steven Feld/Tomie Hahn - Acoustemology
Sounscape, Murray Schafer/Kay Shelemay
What was the main form of research pre-1885?
Informal practices - travel, empire, missions - non academic aspirations
What was the main form of research from 1885?
Comparative Musicology - Armchairs and archives - aspirations of scientific research
What were the main forms of research in the early 1900’s?
Fieldwork (via anthropology)
When did the name ethno-musicology come about?
Kunst (1952) - Beginning of an academic conversation that needed to be named
When did critical musicology surface?
1990s - questions of gender come to the forefront
What are the 6 main debates within the field post WWII?
1) Bi-(musicology), Hood Vs Anthropology of music - Do we prioritise music or culture?
2) Music in culture > Music as culture, Merriam
3) The value of transcription - subjectivity?
4) Crisis of representation - is it possible to represent someone else’s life and philosophy?
5) Identity: gender, postcolonial theory, race
6) ‘We are all (ethnomusicology)musicologists Now?’, Cook (2008)
3 Thinking Definitions
1) Bruno Nettle ‘Harmless Drudge’ - Object of study ads activity/method
-Credo: Music in culture; comparative/relative, fieldwork, all musics
in a society
2) Timothy Rice ‘A Very Short Introduction’ - Etymology: etnmos + mousikē + logos
- Study of how humans are musical
3) Nicholas Cook ‘Ethnomusicology prevailed’
In all definitions there are exclusions - pop music, Islam, money - do all musicologies matter?
