Ethnomusicology

Ethnomusicology combines perspectives from folklore, psychology, cultural anthropology, linguistics, comparative musicology, music theory, and history. This resulted in various definitions. In 1956, American ethnomusicologist Willard Rhodes called it a theoretical and empirical study amalgamating musicology and anthropology. as well as explaining and emphasizing if it were to be seen and "interpreted" in its "broadest sense" it would be seen as "the total music of humankind, without limitations of time and space." Which he captures and emphasizes more of ethnomusicology's double concept between this anthropology aspect and a musicology aspect. The word is a portmanteau of 'ethno' (people), and 'musicology' (study of music). Typical definitions include elements such as a holistic approach, cultural context, music theory, sonic, and historical perspectives. In other words, ethnomusicology is the study of music as a social and cultural phenomenon. Alan P. Merriam defined ethnomusicology as the study of "music as culture," and offered four goals of ethnomusicology: Scholars such as Willard Rhodes were one of a majority who argued that the field of ethnomusicology should mainly be defined as a field that explores all musical communities, as well as situating styles and practices with their cultural and social contexts. Throughout Rhodes's time period, he helped capture the definition of ethnomusicology during that time: a scientific discipline that holds on to the humanity aspect it has through the lives of communities. ==History==

Ethnomusicologists apply theories and methods from other social science disciplines such as cultural anthropology, cultural studies, and sociology. While some researchers primarily conduct historical studies, the majority practice long-term participant observation. Ethnomusicological work brings intensive ethnographic methods to the study of music. Two approaches are common: anthropological and musicological. Those using the anthropological approach study how culture affects music. Seeger differentiated the two approaches, describing the anthropology of music as attempting understand music as a part of culture and social life, while musical anthropology considers social life as a performance. Hood advocated for more of a musicological approach to ethnomusicology, arguing that researchers should learn to perform the music they study to understand it from within the culture's own system of knowledge, a concept he called "bi-musicality". Anthropological Anthropological ethnomusicologists stress the importance of fieldwork and using participant observation in order to study music as culture. This can include a variety of fieldwork practices, including personal exposure to a performance tradition or musical technique, participation in a native ensemble, or inclusion in social customs. In the past, local musical transcription was required to study music globally, due to the lack of recording technology. This approach emphasizes the cultural impact of music and how music can be used to further understand humanity. Musicological Those who practice a musicological approach study both musical structure and relationships between music and culture, often comparatively. In practice, this involves learning to perform the music under study. This is intended to combat ethnocentrism and transcend Western analytical conventions. == Analysis ==

Top-down vs bottom-up Analytical and research methods have changed over time, taking two primary paths. Top-down, deductive analysis looks for musical universals that apply across cultures. Implicit in such an approach is that analysts must be aware of any cultural frames that underlie analytical methodologies. By contrast, some scholars adopt subjective, inductive, bottom-up methodologies tailored to a specific music and culture. Methodologies Ethnomusicology has yet to establish standards for analysis, despite efforts by analysts such as Kolinski, Béla Bartók, and von Hornbostel. Pitch systems in countries such as India, Japan, and China vary "not only [in] the absolute pitch of each note, but also necessarily the intervals between them". He concluded that the real pitch of a musical scale can only be determined when "heard as played by a native musician" and even then, "obtain that particular musician's tuning". Kolinski used the distance between the initial and final tones in melodic patterns to reject the early binary of European and non-European and refuted von Hornbostel's hypothesis that European music generally had ascending melodic lines, while other music featured descending melodic lines. Feld conducted descriptive ethnographic studies treating "sound as a cultural system" in his studies of Kaluli people, instead opting for sociomusical methods. == Fieldwork ==

Fieldwork involves observing music where it is created and performed. Ethnomusicological fieldwork differs from anthropological fieldwork because it requires gathering detailed information about the mechanics of music production, including recording, filming, and written material. Ethnomusicological fieldwork involves gathering musical data, experience, texts (e.g. songs, tales, myths, proverbs), and information on social structures. Many recordings were archived at the Berliner Phonogramm-Archiv at the Berlin school of comparative musicology. These recordings formed the foundation of ethnomusicology. In the 1930s James Mooney for the Bureau of American Ethnology; Natalie Curtis, and Alice C. Fletcher were in the field to transcribe Ghost Dance songs that were part of various Native American belief systems. McAllester conducted a pioneering fieldwork study of Navajo music study, particularly the music of the Enemy Way ceremony. He sought to identify Navajo cultural values based on analysis of attitudes toward music. McAllester used a questionnaire that included items such as: • Some people beat a drum when they sing; what other things are used like that? • What did people say when you learned how to sing? • Are there different ways of making the voice sound when we sing? • Are there songs that sound especially pretty? • What kind of melody do you like better: (illustrate with a chant-like melody and a more varied one). • Are there songs for men only? [for women only? for children only?] and later Nettl By the 1980s, the participant-observer methodology became the norm, at least in the North American tradition of ethnomusicology. Ethical concerns became more prominent in the 1970s, seeking to protect performers' rights by, e.g., obtaining informed permission to make recordings, according to the conventions of the host society. Ethics also requires the observer to show respect for the host culture, e.g., by avoiding ethnocentric remarks. Seeger interpreted this to rule out exploring how singing came to exist within Suyá culture, instead examining how singing creates culture, and how social life can be seen through musical and performative lenses. Barz and Cooley claimed that fieldwork is always personal because in ethnomusicology, unlike the natural sciences, becomes a participant in the group they are researching just by their presence. To illustrate the disparity between those participatory experiences and what typically gets published, they distinguish field research, which attempts to characterize reality from field notes which record perceptions and are often omitted from published work. Best practices Later researchers paid greater attention to ensuring that their fieldwork provided a holistic sense of the culture under study. One way to bridge gaps in perspective is by conducting long-term, residential studies, often for more than one year. In 1927 Herzog recorded several hundred songs over a two-month stay, establishing a precedent for extending fieldwork. Working with Blackfoot people, Nettl evolved from seeking out ostensibly representative singers to deciding that the community was non-homogeneous, requiring each singer to be understood on their own terms. == Theoretical issues ==

Universals Musicologists have long pondered the question of universals in music. Longfellow wrote that music is the universal language of mankind However, scholars have yet to identify characteristics that all music has in common, much less universals in the way that humans hear and understand it. Universals would allow all music to be characterized accordingly. The search for universal traits was characteristic of nineteenth-century musicology.Most musicians and some teachers believed that music was a universal language. Musicologists tried to prove propositions such as that all 'primitive' peoples have monophonic singing and use intervals. Scholarship at the time was limited to European music and treated all other as (possibly distant) relatives. Ethnomusicologists initially questioned the possibility of universals because they were searching for an approach to explain music that differed from Guido Adler's. The realization that culture has an important role in shaping aesthetic responses to music sparked controversy, with debates questioning e.g., what people consider music, and whether perceptions of consonance and dissonance have a biological or cultural basis. By the 1990s the notion of universals was popular,but not...universal. Seeger, for instance, categorized his interpretation of musical universals by using Venn diagrams to organize five universal qualities. Harwood claimed that looking for causality relationships and "deep structure" (as advanced by Chomsky) was a fruitless way to look for universals. Nettl asserted that music is particular, not universal, because culture's influence produced so diverse. He qualified this by saying that types of music are not as mutually unintelligible as human languages, preferring the term dialect rather than language. He opined that the ways in which people sing and play bear significant similarities. List and McAllester also denied the existence of musical universals. Eventually, the search retreated from universals to near-universals. McAllester suggested qualities such as tonal center, a course, an ending, and the ability to stimulate feelings, performers, music's ability to generate out of body experience, religion, and sex. In response, Wachsmann countered that even near-universals were oversimplifications. Wachsmann claimed that mere resemblance may be how people distinguish music from other things. He attempted to create an amalgam of relations for sound and psyche: • the sounds' physical properties • the physiological response to the sound • the perception of sounds as selected by the human mind based on previous experiences, • the response to transient environmental pressures. Harwood approached the question of universality from a psychological perspective. He claimed that universals in music are basic human cognitive and social processes. He called this an "information processing approach" and considered music as an auditory stimulus that affects the human perceptual and cognitive system. This implies that stimuli that do not produce such effects do not qualify as music. List stated that since music is not the sole producer of heightened experience (which applies equally well to other arts), it therefore cannot be a music universal. This approach was influenced by de Saussure, Peirce, and Lévi-Strauss among others. Nattiez classified the study of music as a humanity rather than a science and taking a linguistic approach. Some musics have been cited as more suited to linguistic analysis than others. Indian music, for example, has been linked directly to language. Some cantometric measurements are relatively reliable, such as wordiness, while others are less so, such as precision of enunciation. Feld made pairwise comparisons about competence, form, performance, environment, theory, and value/equality. Insider/outsider epistemology Wachsmann claimed that each genre communicates to the members of its in-group only. The relevance and implications of insider and outsider distinctions been a subject of debate over the qualifications needed to research the music of a specific culture. Must the researcher be a member of that culture? If not, what rules apply? Ethnomusicology began with largely Western researchers examining other cultures, often concluding it to be inferior to Western music. This led musicians in host cultures to object to such researchers, for their inability to escape their preconceptions. to bring the outsider some insider insight. The position of ethnomusicologists as outsiders looking in on a music culture, was discussed in Said's theory of Orientalism. Said claimed that Westerners are trapped in an imagined or romanticized view of "the Other". According to Nettl, three beliefs of insiders and members of the host culture lead to adverse results: • "Ethnomusicologists come to compare non-Western musics or other "other" traditions to their own... in order to show that the outsider's own music is superior", • "Ethnomusicologists want to use their own approaches to non-Western music; • "They come with the assumption that there is such a thing as African or Asian or American Indigenous music, disregarding boundaries obvious to the host." He argued that ethnomusicologists had successfully purged orientalist approaches. He analyzed the notion of insider, using geographic, social, and economic factors that distinguish insiders from outsiders. Nettl disputed the notion of the native as the eternal other and the outsider as a westerner by default. He noted that some researchers of "more industrialized African and Asian nations" also see themselves as outsiders in regard to their own rural communities. He stated that the world is constructed with preexisting symbols that distort understanding. He rejected objectivity and that an outside researcher could understand music as a native would. He applied fieldwork techniques to study an American music conservatory, attempting to act as an outsider, doing his best to repress his experience and knowledge of American conservatory culture. He analyzed conservatory conventions that he might otherwise have overlooked, such as the way announcements are disseminated, to make cultural assertions. For example, he concluded that the institutional structure of the conservatory was highly decentralized. Ethics Ethical concerns in fieldwork must inform interactions between researchers and those with whom they interact. Ethically, each party must be comfortable with the process and ensure that all parties are compensated fairly. beyond relations between researcher and informant. However, indigenous researchers face many of the same ethical risks. While copyright law is the primary method of protecting artistic works in Western society, other protection|s may be required for non-Western works, because their origin in oral tradition may not qualify them for copyright. Furthermore non-Western artists may lack familiarity with copyright law, leaving them at a disadvantage. The Society of Ethnomusicology Committee on Ethics publishes an official position statement on ethics. Intellectual property In many countries, copyright law controls how intellectual property such as musical works and recordings are protected. Copyright dictates how credit and money are allocated. While researchers conduct fieldwork, they interact with indigenous people. Once complete, they retain material including interviews and recordings. Copyright protects both researchers and creators. However, legal matters are country-specific, notably in China and India. In other cultures intellectual property may be a matter of tradition. The Suyá people in Brazil root ownership in animals, spirits, and entire communities. US copyright law invests named individuals (e.g., Lennon and McCartney) with ownership instead. In some cases copyright has been granted instead to the informant-performer, the researcher, the producer, or the funding organization. In Senegal, copyright benefits such as music royalties are allocated to the Senegalese government, which hosts a talent competition, where the winner receives royalties. Scherzinger stated that spiritual inspiration did not prevent composers from copyrighting their creations. He draws a parallel between group ownership of a song and the influence in Western music of multiple composers on any individual work. Musical habits and responses to them lead to culturally based identity and identity groups. Stokes claimed that music creates barriers among groups and that identity defines them. Music reinforces identity, while identity can shape musical innovation. A 1986 case study of Mexican-American music in Los Angeles from the 1950s to the 1980s claimed that Chicano musicians mixed styles and genres to represent their multifaceted cultural identity. By incorporating Mexican folk music and modern-day barrio influences, Mexican rock-and-roll musicians in LA made commercially successful records that reflected their community, history, and identity. Minority groups sought solidarity by sharing experience with others. Many scholars have explored how musical taste contributes to a sense of unique identity developed through the practices of listening to and performing music. Women began contributing fieldwork in the 1950s, although women's and gender studies in ethnomusicology took off in the 1970s as in other domains. Koskoff discerned three stages in women's studies within ethnomusicology: If a female artist's allure is more important for her success than her music, the latter may not sustain her. Doubleday defined "suitable" instruments for women as those that require no physical exertions which do not disrupt the graceful stereotype of a woman. Similarly, a 2026 study of gender dynamics within Orthodox Jewish culture documented how partnership minyanim dance reinterpreted religious law to establish a new context for women's performance, escaping the tradition of excluding women from religious music for reasons of female modesty. In reflexive ethnography, researchers critically consider how their identity may impact their work and the societies and people they study. For example, Hagedorn described how her race, gender, and home culture afforded her luxuries out of reach of her Cuban counterparts in her research on santeria. Her identity put her in an "outsider" position with respect to Cuban culture. Unlike her Cuban female counterparts who faced stigma, she was allowed to play the bata drum and thus advance her research. The Gender and Sexualities Taskforce within the Society for Ethnomusicology works to increase the presence and stature of gender/sexuality/LGBTQ/feminist scholarship. The Society awards the Marcia Herndon Prize, honoring exceptional ethnomusicological work in gender and sexuality including works that focus upon lesbian, gay, bisexual, two-spirited, homosexual, transgender and multiple gender issues and communities, as well as to commemorate Herndon's contributions in promoting works by women that compare the philosophies and behaviors of male and female researchers and musicians, along dimensions of spirituality, female empowerment, and culturally defined gender-related duties. Nationalism Nationalism interacts with music in various ways. In the latter half of the 19th century, song collectors motivated by the legacy of folkloric studies and musical nationalism in Southern and Eastern Europe collected folk songs for use in the construction of a pan-Slavic identity. Collector-composers became "national composers" when they composed songs that became emblematic of national identity. Namely, Frédéric Chopin gained international recognition as a composer of emblematic Polish music despite having no ancestral ties to the Polish peasantry. Composers such as Béla Bartók, Jean Sibelius, Edvard Grieg, and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov composed songs for the benefit of the governments of their respective countries. In the 1990s industry pushed the term World Music as a way to market "non-Western" music. Examples began appearing on the Billboard charts, in Grammy Award nominations, and through participation of immigrants looking to get involved as musicians and audience members. The term was a market success in the US, but made no sense elsewhere. Glocalization is the simultaneous presence of universalizing and particularizing forces in social, political, and economic systems. A musical example is the emergence of a new genre such as Cumbia in Columbia and its rapid spread in other countries. As the Punjab evolved from an isolated area under the British into a cohesive identity, eventually launching its own diaspora, bhangra music transformed from a regional entertainment into a signal of Punjabi national identity in the 1940s and 1950s. It became associated with Punjabi nationalism and from there into the 1970s absorbed external influences that made it accessible to Punjabi expatriates, outrunning the appeal of more traditional works. Recorded Punjabi pop then became prevalent, reacting to the globalization of preferences and fully escaping the social norms and restrictions that had provided its original character. Particularly in Chicano music, musicians were strongly encouraged to take on a separate identity. One form of success might be record sales, while another might be receiving respect as contributors to musical masterpieces. Don Tostino's Band reflected on how difficult it was for them to present Chicano music while maintaining their identity, citing audience expectations that the band arrive on stage in sombreros, tropical outfits, and other stereotypes. Appropriation Cultural appropriation is a manifestation of the long-time phenomenon of musicians and other artists taking ideas from works by others. Before the recording era, this mostly occurred within individual cultures where artists learned from others nearby. Thereafter, the stage broadened and musicians could easily learn of and take from music from anywhere. This became controversial when Western artists took from non-Western cultures without properly acknowledging or compensating their sources. Paul Simon's collaboration with South African musicians for his Graceland album attracted criticism. Simon paid the South African musicians for their work, but retained legal and contract rights to the result. Critics claimed that all the musicians should retain some ownership. Delgado brought awareness to this appropriation by comparing it to Native American Mascots that have been utilized by sports teams and schools. By doing so, he argues that these imageries speak about colonial and bizarre perspectives that he mentions does not correlate or align with the fields ideals and commitments. Truly emphasizing this injustice and unequal power that can later create harm for these communities. Decolonialism In humanities and education studies, the term decolonization describes "processes involving social justice, resistance, sustainability, and preservation". For ethnomusicology, understanding decolonization means analyzing fundamental changes in power structures, worldviews, academia, and the university system. As early as 2006, decolonization became a central topic of discussion, although some researchers considered it only a metaphor. Ethnomusicologists have used decolonial approaches for diverse purposes, including showing how non-Western nations use music projects to negotiate international relations, and to promote equality and transparency in intercultural music performance. Initially, Western methods and beliefs dominated ethnomusicology, as shown in Alder's work from 1885 and Gilman's work from 1909, which exemplify that Eurocentric approach of analyzing music via musical scores. The arrival of recording technology and convenient travel enabled other approaches. Reliance on European knowledge and musical notation obscured the complexities of other musical traditions, some of which used scales for which no written notation existed at the time. However, representing/interpreting music of all cultures with a standard system and notation can also be useful. Western music notation and musical systems serve allow the comprehensive analysis and assessment of musical compositions. This standardized system provides a common language that enables musicians, scholars, and enthusiasts from diverse backgrounds to communicate effectively about musical elements such as melody, harmony, rhythm, and structure. Music archives are in part a legacy of colonial ethnomusicology. Comparative musicologists used archives such as the Berlin Phonogramm-Archiv to study the world's music. Recovery and repatriation of archival records are one way to decolonize the field. The International Library of African Music is one recipient of such material. Proposed approaches to decolonization include: == Technology ==

Technology has dramatically affected the practice of ethnomusicology. Prior to recording technology, music could only be transmitted via performance in most cultures. Western culture, beginning in Mesopotamia, developed written notations. The phonograph, radio, cassettes, film and video, and ultimately digital technology transformed how music could be studied. It also affected music's cultural roles in many societies, in some cases losing its ability to exemplify and unite communities. Recordings democratized recording and listening, reducing the power of governments to limit what residents can listen to. == Cognition ==

Cognitive psychology, neuroscience, anatomy, and similar fields study how music relates to perception, cognition, and behavior. Topics include pitch perception, representation and expectation, timbre perception, rhythm processing, event hierarchies, performance/ability, universals, origins/development, and cross-cultural cognition. Scale Scale construction is culturally specific. Training in a cultural scale results in melodic and harmonic expectations for how music is arranged. Issues such as the definition of dissonance and whether that ascription is learned remain unsettled. Many musical traditions' tunings align with their dominant instrument's timbre's partials and fall on the tuning continuum of syntonic temperament, suggesting that syntonic temperament (and closely related temperaments) may be a potential near-universal. Rhythm African and Western rhythms appear to be organized differently. Western rhythms are based on ratio relationships (e.g., halves and quarters), while African rhythms appear to be organized additively (each note has its own duration). A 1997 study analyzed a drummer who produced prototypical rhythm patterns. A mathematical model was used to test hypotheses on the timing of the beats, leading to the conclusion that all drumming patterns could be interpreted within an additive structure, which was thus proposed to be a universal rhythm framework. Timbre Timbre is how humans distinguish the sounds of different instruments and voices playing the same note. Unlike pitch, timbre has not been decomposed into physical phenomena that corresponds to an acoustic signal. One view is that timbre is purely psychological. Another approach considers timbre at a musical level. Timbral extraction involves decomposing a sound into its component frequencies (audible in overtone singing and didjeridoo music). Timbral redistribution creates new combinations of gestalt components into new groups, creating a chimeric sound (audible in Ghanaian balafon music or the bell tone in barbershop singing). Timbral juxtaposition combines sounds that fall on opposing ends of a timbral continuum that extends from harmonically based to formant-structured (audible in overtone singing or the minde ornament in sitar music). == Domains ==

Applied ethnomusicology Titon described applied ethnomusicology as "a music-centered intervention into a particular community whose purpose is to benefit that community, for example a social improvement, a musical benefit, a cultural good, or an economic advantage". The term first appeared in an official SEM publication in 1964 when Merriam wrote, "The ultimate aim of the study of man involves the question of whether one is searching knowledge for its own sake or is attempting to provide solutions for practically applied problems." Fieldwork is crucial to applied ethnomusicology. McAllester described his role after conducting fieldwork: "And my experience, once I got among the Navajos, caused me to drop out of anthropology. I dropped the scientific point of view to a large extent, and I became…um, an advocate of the Navajos, rather than an objective viewer. And I was certainly among those in ethnomusicology who began to value… the views of the people who make the music, more than the value of the trained scholars who were studying it." Western music Early in the history of ethnomusicology, debate focused on whether ethnomusicology applied to Western music. Early scholars such as Hood argued that ethnomusicology had two potential foci: all non-European art music, and music found in a given geographical area. Despite the increased acceptance of work on Western music, researchers continued to focus on non-Western music. Kingsbury was one of the few major ethnomusicological examiners of Western art music. Nettl studied symbolism in Western music culture. He cited an example of an analyst interpreting Beethoven in a literal fashion according to specific pieces of literature. The analyst assigned meanings to motifs and melodies. Nettl stated that this reveals how members of Western music culture are inclined to view art music as symbolic. Some ethnomusicological work focuses less on specific cultures. For example, Stokes' work on identity encompassed both Western and non-Western cultures. He claimed that some cultures may seek to "desex" musicians as a form of control. Stokes studied identity, nationality, and location and how this manifests in Western music. He stated that Irish music in migrant communities in England and American was a way for individuals to locate themselves in a different part of the world. Medical ethnomusicology Ethnochoreology == Academic programs ==

Many universities offer ethnomusicology classes, including graduate and undergraduate degree-granting options. The Society of Ethnomusicology maintains a list of such programs. Undergraduates often enroll in music courses to study music theory, history, and performance, with an emphasis on world music traditions. Master's and Ph.D. programs in ethnomusicology are commonly available. Proficiency in multiple languages is encouraged. ==Popular culture==

Some music festivals pertain to ethnomusicology, notably World of Music, Arts and Dance, held in multiple countries. This festival was first held in 1982. Paul Simon's album, Graceland (1986) received substantial interest from ethnomusicologists for its elements of South African music. The Kronos Quartet has featured collaborations with traditional musicians from many cultures, as shown in Pieces of Africa. Ethnomusicology has appeared in literature. For example, in Karen Hesse's novel, The Music of Dolphins (1996), Doctor Elizabeth Beck is an ethnomusicologist researching the musical communication of dolphins. The science fiction novel The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson (2013), presents an ethnomusicologist as its protagonist. In film, The Buena Vista Social Club (1999), brings traditional Cuban music to world audiences and illustrates ethnomusicological elements. Songcatcher (2000) is loosely based on the work of Olive Dame Campbell. In Inside Out 2 (2024), ethnomusicologist is briefly mentioned as a possible future career for Riley. ==See also==