ethnomusicology

ethnomusicology
Name	Ethnomusicology
Focus	Study of music in cultural context
Related	Anthropology, Musicology, Folklore

ethnomusicology Ethnomusicology is an interdisciplinary field examining musical practice, performance, transmission, and meaning across cultural settings. Scholars combine historical investigation, participant-observation, archival research, and sonic analysis to address questions about societies, identities, and institutions such as the Smithsonian Institution, British Museum, Library of Congress, University of Oxford, and Harvard University. Research often connects to musicians, ensembles, festivals, and movements including Bhajan, Carnatic music, Gamelan, Flamenco, and Afro-Cuban religious music.

Definition and Scope

Ethnomusicology defines itself through study of musical life as situated within communities like those in India, Indonesia, Spain, Cuba, and West Africa while engaging with institutions such as the British Library, National Archives, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Smithsonian Folkways, and European Union programs. The discipline intersects with scholarship on figures and works including Alan Lomax, Béla Bartók, Zoltán Kodály, Lévi-Strauss, Edward Sapir, Franz Boas, Bronisław Malinowski, and Claude Lévi-Strauss while considering repertoires from Gregorian chant to hip hop and productions at venues like Carnegie Hall and Madison Square Garden. Debates engage methods used by units at Columbia University, University of California, Los Angeles, SOAS University of London, University of Cambridge, and professional bodies such as the Society for Ethnomusicology.

History and Development

The field developed through contacts among collectors, composers, and anthropologists connected to institutions like the Victor Talking Machine Company, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Bibliothèque nationale de France, and Deutsche Grammophon. Early collectors such as Franz Boas', Alan Lomax, Federico García Lorca, Francisco Curtó, and Zora Neale Hurston informed later scholars affiliated with Columbia University, University of California, Berkeley, University of Chicago, and King’s College London. Twentieth-century encounters involved composers and ethnographers like Claude Debussy, Igor Stravinsky, Béla Bartók, Zoltán Kodály, Paul Hindemith, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and institutions such as the BBC and Radio France which archived field recordings. Postwar expansion linked to international conferences at UNESCO, debates over cultural patrimony such as the NAGPRA framework in the United States, and intellectual movements influenced by Postcolonialism, Feminist theory, and scholars like Edward Said, Stuart Hall, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak.

Methods and Fieldwork

Fieldwork methods draw on participant-observation techniques developed by Bronisław Malinowski, Franz Boas, Ruth Benedict, Margaret Mead, and researchers at American Museum of Natural History and Brooklyn Museum. Practitioners record performances using technologies from Edison phonograph to portable devices pioneered by Alan Lomax and archived at Smithsonian Folkways, Library of Congress, and British Library Sound Archive. Teams collaborate with artists and organizations such as Buena Vista Social Club, Buena Vista Social Club (group), Fela Kuti, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Anoushka Shankar, and ensembles like Collegium Musicum, Orquesta Aragón, Gamelan Sekar Jaya. Analytic practices employ notation systems influenced by Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály while using software from companies such as Avid Technology and methods advocated by scholars at Indiana University, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and York University.

Musical Analysis and Theoretical Approaches

Analytic approaches include structuralist readings from thinkers like Claude Lévi-Strauss, semiotic models inspired by Roland Barthes, and performance theory linked to Victor Turner and Richard Schechner. Researchers analyze rhythm, melody, and form in repertoires such as maqam, raga, isicathamiya, samba, tango, blues, and Gagaku using tools developed by Alan Lomax, Béla Bartók, Kofi Agawu, Bruno Nettl, Mantle Hood, and John Blacking. Comparative work engages archives at Roud Folk Song Index, collections like Bibliothèque nationale de France, and corpora maintained by Deutsche Nationalbibliothek and universities such as Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.

Cultural Contexts and Social Functions

Studies address music’s roles in ritual, identity, labor, and politics exemplified by events and movements including Carnival, Semana Santa, Civil Rights Movement, Anti-Apartheid Movement, and institutions like African National Congress and United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Case studies consider performers and communities such as Youssou N'Dour, Cesária Évora, Buena Vista Social Club, Bob Marley, Fela Kuti, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Tuvan throat singing communities, Balinese gamelan ensembles, and urban scenes in Rio de Janeiro, Lagos, Kingston, Jamaica, Seville, and Vienna. Scholarship links musical forms to media and industries including MTV, Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, and festivals like WOMAD and Montreux Jazz Festival.

Ethics and Decolonization in Ethnomusicology

Ethical practice involves repatriation debates involving institutions such as the British Museum, Smithsonian Institution, and National Museum of Australia, protocols influenced by laws like the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act and standards developed by scholarly societies including the Society for Ethnomusicology and International Council for Traditional Music. Decolonial critiques draw on work by Frantz Fanon, Edward Said, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Linda Tuhiwai Smith, and activists connected to movements in Aotearoa New Zealand, Canada, Australia, and South Africa. Contemporary practice prioritizes collaborative methods with artists and communities such as Indigenous Australian musicians, Māori kapa haka, First Nations' ensembles, and initiatives coordinated with archives like Smithsonian Folkways and museums like the Australian Museum.

Category:Musicology