Editing Ethnomusicology (section)

===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.<ref name=Nettl2005/>{{rp|139}}<ref>{{Cite web |title=Faculty/Bruno Nettl |url=https://music.illinois.edu/faculty/bruno-nettl |access-date=2016-12-12 |website=Illinois Department of Music}}</ref> Ethnomusicologist fieldwork gathers data. experience, texts (e.g. tales, myths, proverbs), and information on social structures.<ref name=Nettl2005/>{{rp|133-148}} Ethnomusicological fieldwork principally involves social interaction and requires establishing personal relationships.<ref name=Nettl2005/>{{rp|136}}

==== History ====
From the 19th century through the mid-20th century, European scholars ([[folklorists]], [[ethnographers]], and some early ethnomusicologists) who attempted to preserve disappearing music cultures, collected transcriptions or audio recordings on [[Phonograph cylinder|wax cylinders]].<ref name="autoB">Myers, Helen. 1992. "Ethnomusicology." In ''Ethnomusicology: An Introduction'', ed. Helen Myers, 3-6. New York: Norton.</ref> Many recordings were archived at the [[Berliner Phonogramm-Archiv]] at the Berlin school of [[comparative musicology]], founded by [[Carl Stumpf]], his student von Hornbostel, and medical doctor Otto Abraham. These recordings formed the foundation of ethnomusicology. Stumpf and Hornbostel did little fieldwork themselves, insted relying on other.<ref name="auto">Cooley, Timothy J. and Gregory Barz. 2008 [1997]. "Casting Shadows in the Field: An Introduction." In ''Shadows in the Field: New Perspectives for Fieldwork in Ethnomusicology'', 2nd ed., 1-10. New York: Oxford UP.</ref>

[[File:Vinko Žganec.JPG|thumb|236px|[[Vinko Žganec]], a [[Croatia]]n [[ethnomusicologist]], did most of his fieldwork in [[Međimurje County]].]]

Ethnomusicology transitioned from analysis of scores and recording to fieldwork in the period following [[World War II]].{{citation needed|date=December 2019}} Fieldwork emphasized face-to-face interaction to improve the quality of observations.<ref name="auto"/>

Stumpf and Hornbostel were not the only scholars to avoid fieldwork. For example, in ''Hungarian Folk Music'', [[Béla Bartók]] analyzes Hungarian folk songs. While drawing from recordings he had made, Bartók also relied on others' transcriptions, such as those of {{ill|Vikar Béla|Béla Vikar|hu|Vikar Béla}}, [[Zoltán Kodály]], and [[László Lajtha|Lászo Lajtha]].<ref>Bartok, Bela. 1931. ''Hungarian Folk Music.'' London: Oxford University Press.</ref>

In 1935, the journal [[American Anthropologist]] published an article titled "Plains Ghost Dance and Great Basin Music," authored by [[George Herzog (ethnomusicologist)|George Herzog]]. Herzog was an assistant to von Hornbostel and Stumpf. Herzog drew from transcriptions by [[James Mooney]] for the [[Bureau of American Ethnology]]; [[Natalie Curtis]], and [[Alice Cunningham Fletcher|Alice C. Fletcher]] to analyze [[Ghost Dance]] songs.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Herzog|first=George|date=1935|title=Plains Ghost Dance and Great Basin Music|journal=American Anthropologist|volume=37|issue=3|pages=403–419|issn=0002-7294|jstor=661963|doi=10.1525/aa.1935.37.3.02a00040|doi-access=free}}</ref>

A pioneering fieldwork of [[Navajo music]] study was conducted by [[David P. McAllester|David McAllester]], particularly the music of the [[Navajo song ceremonial complex|Enemy Way]] ceremony.<ref name="McAllester, David P 1954">McAllester, David P. 1954. Enemy Way Music: A Study of Social and Esthetic Values as Seen in Navajo Music. Cambridge, MA: Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, 379, Harvard University vol. XLI, no. 3.</ref> McAllester sought to identify Navajo cultural values based on analysis of attitudes toward music. McAllester gave his interviewees a questionnaire, which 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?]<ref>{{Cite journal|last=McAllester|first=David P.|date=September 1956|title=Enemy Way Music. A Study of Social and Esthetic Values as Seen in Navajo Music|journal=Ethnomusicology|volume=1|issue=8|pages=91–92|doi=10.2307/924763|issn=0014-1836|jstor=924763}}</ref>

In ''The Anthropology of Music'' ''(''1964), [[Alan P. Merriam|Alan Merriam]] criticized the quality of contemporary fieldwork as thoughtlessly gathering musical sound and relying on laboratory workers to analyze and contextualize it.<ref name=":11">{{Cite book |last=Merriam |first=Alan P. |title=The Anthropology of Music |date=1964 |publisher=Northwestern University Press |isbn=0-8101-0178-5 |location=Evanston, IL |page=38 |oclc=484109}}</ref>  Later, Nettl echoed this concern, describing early 20th-century fieldwork as extraction. Between 1920 and 1960, however, fieldworkers began to move beyond collection to mapping entire musical systems while in the field. After the 1950s, some began to participate with local musicians.<ref name=Nettl2005 />

Merriam listed several areas of fieldworkinquiry:<ref name=":11" />

* Musical material culture: classification and cultural perception of musical instruments
* Song texts
* Categories of music as defined by locals
* Musician training, opportunity, and perceptions by others
* Uses and functions of music in relation to other cultural practices
* Music sources<ref>{{cite book|title=The Anthropology of Music|last=Merriam|first=Alan P.|date=1964|publisher=Northwestern University Press|isbn=0-8101-0178-5|location=Evanston, IL|pages=44–48|oclc=484109}}</ref>

By the 1970s Hood was in the field learning from Indonesian musicians about [[Slendro|sléndro scales]], and to play the ''[[rebab]]''.<ref>Hood, Mantle. 1971. ''The Ethnomusicologist.'' Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press. pp. 220-232.</ref>

By the 1980s, participant-observer methodology became the norm, at least in the North American tradition of ethnomusicology.<ref name=Nettl2005>{{cite book|title=The Study of Ethnomusicology: Thirty-one Issues and Concepts|url={{google books|plainurl=y|id=hXPDDA6H5GsC}}|last=Nettl|first=Bruno|date=2005|publisher=University of Illinois Press|isbn=0-252-03033-8|edition=2nd|location=Urbana, IL|oclc=59879505}}</ref>{{rp|141-143}}

Ethical concerns became more prominent in the 1970s as they did within anthropology.<ref name="ReferenceD">Cooley, Timothy J. and Gregory Barz. 2008 [1997]. "Casting Shadows in the Field: An Introduction." In ''Shadows in the Field: New Perspectives for Fieldwork in Ethnomusicology'', 2nd ed., 3-24. New York: Oxford UP.</ref><ref name="Slobin, Mark 1993">Slobin, Mark. 1993. "Ethical Issues." In Ethnomusicology: An Introduction, ed. H. Meyers, 329-336. New York: Norton</ref> Ethical fieldwork must protect performers' rights. The fieldworker must obtain informed permission to record the performer(s), according to the conventions of the host society. Ethicals also requires the observer to  avoid [[Ethnocentrism|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.<ref name="Seeger, Anthony 1983">Seeger, Anthony. 1983. ''Why Suyá Sing''. London: Oxford University Press. pp. xiii-xvii.</ref>

==== Ideal vs ordinary ====
Music appears in a given culture at multiple levels, from informal to elite. E.g., ethnomusicology can focus on music from informal groups or the Beatles or ignore such distinctions as biased. Would the same methodology apply to the study of each?<ref name=Nettl2005/>{{rp|145}}

==== Objectivity ====
The question of whether a standard approach to fieldwork is possible/beneficial recapitulated a similar discussion about ethnomusicology. Various authors rejected efforts to systematize the practice.

Ethnomusicology relies on both data and personal relationships, which often cannot be quantified by statistical data. It tends to emphasize the thrid of [[Bronisław Malinowski]]'s categories of anthropological data (texts, structures, and imponderables of everyday life). This is because it captures the ambiguity of experience that cannot be captured well through writing.<ref name=Nettl2005 /> 

Anthropologist Morris Friedrich  organized field data in fourteen categories. A myriad of factors, many of which exist beyond the researcher's comprehension, prevent a precise and accurate representation of what one has experienced in the field.{{Cn|date=May 2025}}<!-- What are they? --> 

[[Alan P. Merriam|Merriam]] in 1964 characterized ethnomusicological fieldwork as primarily concerned with the collection of facts. He described ethnomusicology as both a field and a laboratory discipline. He advocated a combination of a standardized and more free-form approaches because he had found that to be his most fruitful work.<ref name=":12" />

In 1994 Rice rejected the possibility of objective perception. Relying on [[Martin Heidegger|Heidegger]], [[Hans-Georg Gadamer|Gadamer]], and [[Paul Ricœur|Ricoeur]], he claimed that human perception is inherently subjective because humans interpret perceptions only through symbols. Human preconceptions influence the way these symbols are interpreted. Applying that theory to music, Rice equated musicology to objectivity and musical experience to subjectivity.<ref name=":14">Rice, Timothy. 1994. ''May it Fill Your Soul: Experiencing Bulgarian Music''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 3-135 and 64-88.</ref> He claimed that experience of music was only an interpretation of preconceived symbols, and thus not factual. Thus, chasing objectivity by systematizing fieldwork is futile. Instead, Rice asserted that engaging with someone else's musical experience is impossible, confining  fieldwork to individual analysis.<ref name=":14" /> 

Barz and Cooley claimed that a researcher's field work is always personal because a field researcher in ethnomusicology, unlike a field researcher in 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, Barz and Cooley distinguish the intent of field research from field notes. While field research attempts to characterize reality, field notes record perceptions. However, the content of field notes are often omitted from published work.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Shadows in the Field: New Perspectives for Fieldwork in Ethnomusicology|last1=Barz |first1=Gregory |last2=Cooley |first2=Timothy|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1997|location=New York|pages=45–62}}</ref>

==== Best practices ====
Later ethnomusicologists have paid greater attention to ensuring that their fieldwork provides a holistic sense of the culture under study.<ref name=Nettl2005 />

The majority of ethnomusicologists are [[Western society|Westerners]], including those who study non-Western music.<ref name=Nettl2005 />{{rp|150}} This opened them to the criticism that wealthy, white individuals were taking advantage of their privilege and resources to dominate the discipline. Researchers responded by attempting to change the perception that they are exploiting poorer and less economically advanced communities, treating musicians as test subjects, and then publishing dismissive reports about native music.<ref name=Nettl2005 />{{rp|149-160}} This critique of ethnocentrism may extend to local researchers studying their home country. For example, a Nigerian [[Yoruba people|Yoruba]] may be perceived as an outsider by Nigerian [[Hausa people|Hausa]]. 

Over time, more researchers from other cultures began to examine Western music and societies, at once easing the earlier concerns, while possibly presenting similar issues in reverse.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |editor-last=Myers |editor-first=Helen |url={{google books|plainurl=y|id=66VFQgAACAAJ}} |title=Ethnomusicology: An introduction |date=1992 |publisher=W.W. Norton |isbn=978-0-393-03377-9 |language=en|last=Slobin |first=Mark|chapter=Ethical Issues}}</ref>{{rp|330}}

Nettl, in a 2005 paper, counseled patience for Westerners studying other communities — in his case, a [[Native Americans in the United States|Native American]] community. For example, he consented to a Native American man's request to "come back and see me next Tuesday," even though the man was not busy and could sing in the moment.<ref name=Nettl2005/>{{rp|133-148}}

Ethnomusicologists attempt to bridge gaps in perspective by conducting long-term, residential studies. In 1927, [[George Herzog (ethnomusicologist)|Herzog]] spent two months with the [[Pima people|Pima tribe]] in Arizona, judged insufficient by later standards, which suggest engaing for more than one year. Herzog recorded several hundred songs there, 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 singer to be understood on their own terms.<ref name=Nettl2005/>{{rp|133-148}}