Ethnomusicology

File:Jaap-kunstjpg-20220316051342.jpg

Jaap Kunst, early ethnomusicologist and creator of the term 'ethno-musicology', plays the Indonesian triton, beside other traditional Indonesian instruments.

Template:Anthropology of art Ethnomusicology (from Greek ἔθνος ethnos 'nation' and μουσική mousike 'music') is the multidisciplinary study of music in its cultural context. The discipline investigates social, cognitive, biological, comparative, and other dimensions. Ethnomusicologists study music as a reflection of culture and investigate the act of music-making through various immersive, observational, and analytical approaches. This discipline emerged from comparative musicology, initially focusing on non-Western music, but later expanded to embrace the study of all different music. Template:AnthropologyTemplate:Toclimit

Definition

Ethnomusicology combines perspectives from folklore, psychology, cultural anthropology, linguistics, comparative musicology, music theory, and history.<ref name=":12">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="newgrove.2001">Template:Cite book</ref> This resulted in various definitions. In 1956, Rhodes called it a theoretical and empirical study amalgamating musicology and anthropology.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Titon offered ethnomusicology as the study of "people making music".<ref name="titon.1992">Template:Cite book</ref>

The word is a portmanteau of 'ethno' (people), and 'musicology' (study of music).

Typical definitions include elements such as a holistic approach, cultural context,<ref name="hood.1969">See Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=Nettl2005/>Template:Rp<ref name="Merriam, Alan 1960">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name=MerriamAOM>Template:Cite book</ref> music theory, sonic, and historical perspectives. In other words, ethnomusicology is the study of music as a social and cultural phenomenon.

The practice of ethnomusicology replies on direct engagement and performance, in addition to academic study.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Many ethnomusicological studies incorporate ethnographic fieldwork among those who make the music, learning local languages and culture as well as the music. Ethnomusicologists can become participant observers, learning to perform in a different musical tradition, a practice Hood termed "bi-musicality".<ref name="hood.bimusicality" /> Fieldworkers also collect recordings and contextual information.<ref name=Nettl2005 /> Printed or manuscript sources are not the primary source of epistemic authority. Instead, the focus is on qualitative research.

The term informant is used to identify those whom fieldworkers observe, members of the community under study. Informants may or may not represent an entire musical culture, or the ideal of that culture.

Sakakeeny observed that ethnomusicology since the 1980s has focused increasingly on politics.<ref name=":15">Template:Cite journal</ref>

Objectivity

As the study of music across cultures developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, scholars began applying scientific methods to analyze musical structures systematically. Foundational work in this period established techniques that would later underlie the field. Alexander J. Ellis introduced methods for measuring musical pitch and scale structures in his 1885 paper, "On the Musical Scales of Various Nations". Ellis provided a basis for the objective analysis of musical systems, allowing for cross-cultural comparison and reducing subjective biases.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Comparative musicology, a precursor to ethnomusicology, was largely driven by the efforts of early 20th-century scholars such as Carl Stumpf and Erich M. von Hornbostel. Stumpf, a psychologist and philosopher, founded the Berlin Phonogramm-Archiv, which became one of the first archives dedicated to the systematic collection and preservation of non-Western music. This archive enabled researchers to record and analyze diverse musical forms.<ref name="auto2">Template:Cite web</ref>

Hornbostel, a student of Stumpf, emphasized objective analysis of elements such as pitch, rhythm, and timbre across musical traditions. He promoted the use of standardized transcription and recording techniques, which allowed for detailed comparisons. Hornbostel's methods were instrumental in formalizing comparative musicology as a recognized academic discipline.<ref name="auto2"/>

While these methods introduced rigor, later scholars attempted to balance objectivity with cultural interpretation. This integration helped shape ethnomusicology into an interdisciplinary field that values both precision and cultural understanding.

Approaches

Ethnomusicologists apply theories and methods from other social science disciplines such as cultural anthropology, cultural studies and sociology.<ref>E.g., from anthropology Template:Cite book</ref> While some ethnomusicologists primarily conduct historical studies, the majority practice long-term participant observation. Therefore, ethnomusicological work brings intensive ethnographic methods to the study of music. Two approaches to ethnomusicological studies are common: the anthropological and the musicological.

Anthropological

Those using the anthropological approach study how culture affects music. Charles 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 "studies social life as a performance", examining the way "music is part of the very construction and interpretation of social and conceptual relationships and processes."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Ethnomusicologists following the anthropological approach included scholars such as Steven Feld and Alan Merriam. The anthropological ethnomusicologists stress the importance of field work and using participant observation. This can include a variety of distinct fieldwork practices, including personal exposure to a performance tradition or musical technique, participation in a native ensemble, or inclusion in a myriad of social customs. In the past, local musical transcription was required to study music globally, due to the lack of technology such as phonographs or videographing technology. Similarly, Alan Merriam defined ethnomusicology as "music as culture," and stated four goals of ethnomusicology: to help protect and explain non-Western music, to save "folk" music before it disappears in the modern world, to study music as a means of communication to further world understanding, and to provide an avenue for wider exploration and reflection for those who are interested in primitive studies.<ref name=MerriamAOM/>Template:Rp This approach emphasizes the cultural impact of music and how music can be used to further understand humanity.

Musicological

Those who practice the musicological approach study how music affects culture.

Charles Seeger and Mantle Hood adopted the musicological approach. Hood stressed that his students must learn to play the music they studied. Prompted by a student's letter, he recommended that students undertake substantial musical training in the field, a competency that he termed "bi-musicality".<ref name="hood.bimusicality">Template:Cite journal</ref> This was intended to combat ethnocentrism and transcend Western analytical conventions. Similar to Hood, Seeger valued the performance component of ethnomusicology.

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 may underlie analytical methodologies.<ref name=":0">Herndon, Marcia. 1974. "Analysis: The Herding of Sacred Cows?" Ethnomusicology 18(2): 222.</ref> By contrast, some scholars adopt subjective, inductive, bottom-up methodologies tailored to a specific music and culture.

Authors such as Mieczyslaw Kolinski and Marcia Herndon differed strongly on the subject.<ref name=":0"/><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name=":1">Template:Cite journal</ref> Herndon backed "native categories" and induction from the particulars of a culture.<ref name=":0"/> Kolinski defended the benefits of analysis, arguing for the validity of objective musical facts and laws.<ref name=":1"/>

Kofi Agawu claimed that scholarship on African music emphasizes difference by developing new systems of analysis; he proposed the use of Western notation to reveal similarities to other cultures and bring African music into mainstream scholarship.<ref>Agawu, Kofi. 2003. Representing African Music: Postcolonial Notes, Queries, Positions. New York and London: Routledge. p. 64.</ref>

Analytical methodologies

Ethnomusicology has yet to establish standards for analysis, despite efforts by analysts such as Kolinski, Béla Bartók, and von Hornbostel.<ref name=Nettl2005/>

Perhaps the first attempt was the development of the cent as a unit of pitch by phonetician and mathematician Alexander J. Ellis (1885).<ref>Stock, Jonathan. 2007. "Alexander J. Ellis and His Place in the History of Ethnomusicology." Ethnomusicology 51(2): 306, 308.</ref> Prior to this invention, pitches were described by measurements of frequency, judged inferior since the frequency distance between two notes varies across the octaves (pitch spectrum).<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

The cents system allowed any interval to have a fixed numerical representation, regardless of its specific pitch level.<ref>Stock, Jonathan. 2007. "Alexander J. Ellis and His Place in the History of Ethnomusicology." Ethnomusicology 51(2): 306-25.</ref> His system divided each octave into 1200 cents (100 cents separating each semitone). This allowed precise comparisons of music that used different, often individual- or culture-specific, pitch systems.<ref>Stock, Jonathan. 2007. "Alexander J. Ellis and His Place in the History of Ethnomusicology." Ethnomusicology 51(2): 308.</ref> Pitch systems in countries such as India, Japan, and China varied "not only [in] the absolute pitch of each note, but also necessarily the intervals between them".<ref>Ellis, Alexander J. 1885. "On the Musical Scales of Various Nations." Journal of the Society of Arts 33: 490.</ref> 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".<ref>Ellis, Alexander J. 1885. "On the Musical Scales of Various Nations." Journal of the Society of Arts 33: 490, 491.</ref> Ellis's study was an early example of comparative fieldwork.

Alan Lomax's method of cantometrics analyzed songs to model human behavior in different cultures. He cited a correlation between musical traits and those of the native culture.<ref name="Lomax, Alan Pp. 3-33">Lomax, Alan. 1978 [1968]. Folk Song Style and Culture. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books. p. 143.</ref> Cantometrics involved qualitative scoring based on song characteristics, seeking commonalities.

Kolinski measured the distance between the initial and final tones in melodic patterns. Kolinski used this approach to reject the early binary of European and non-European. He observed markers of "basic similarities in the psycho-physical constitution of mankind".<ref name="Kolinski, Mieczyslaw 1957">Kolinski, Mieczyslaw. 1957. "Ethnomusicology, Its Problems and Methods." Ethnomusicology 1(10): 1-7.</ref> Kolinski employed his method to disprove 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"<ref name=":6">Feld, Steven. 1984 "Sound Structure as Social structure." Ethnomusicology 28(3): 383-409.</ref> in his studies of Kaluli people of Papua New Guinea, 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.<ref name=Nettl2005/>Template:Rp<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Ethnomusicologist fieldwork gathers data. experience, texts (e.g. tales, myths, proverbs), and information on social structures.<ref name=Nettl2005/>Template:Rp Ethnomusicological fieldwork principally involves social interaction and requires establishing personal relationships.<ref name=Nettl2005/>Template:Rp

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 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

Vinko Žganec, a Croatian 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.Template:Citation needed 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 Template:Ill, Zoltán Kodály, and 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. 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 C. Fletcher to analyze Ghost Dance songs.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

A pioneering fieldwork of Navajo music study was conducted by David McAllester, particularly the music of the 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>Template:Cite journal</ref>

In The Anthropology of Music (1964), 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">Template:Cite book</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>Template:Cite book</ref>

By the 1970s Hood was in the field learning from Indonesian musicians about 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>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp

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 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/>Template:Rp

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.Template:Cn

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 Heidegger, Gadamer, and 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>Template:Cite book</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 Westerners, including those who study non-Western music.<ref name=Nettl2005 />Template:Rp 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 />Template:Rp This critique of ethnocentrism may extend to local researchers studying their home country. For example, a Nigerian Yoruba may be perceived as an outsider by Nigerian 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">Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp

Nettl, in a 2005 paper, counseled patience for Westerners studying other communities — in his case, a 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/>Template:Rp

Ethnomusicologists attempt to bridge gaps in perspective by conducting long-term, residential studies. In 1927, Herzog spent two months with the 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/>Template:Rp

Theoretical issues and debates

Universals

Musicologists have long pondered the question of universals in music. Music has long been seen as a "universal language". However, scholars have yet to describe characteristics that all music has in common. If universals were identified, all music could be characterized accordingly.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Ethnomusicologists initially started to question the possibility of universals because they were searching for a new approach to explain musicology that differed from Guido Adler's. Ethnomusicologists worldwide have realized that culture has an important role in shaping aesthetic responses to music. This realization sparked controversy in the community, with debates questioning what people consider music, and whether perceptions of consonance and dissonance have a biological or cultural basis.

Belief in universal traits was characteristic of nineteenth-century musicology. Longfellow wrote that music is the universal language of mankind. Wilhelm Wundt tried to prove that "all 'primitive' peoples have monophonic singing and use intervals. Most musicians and even some teachers of Wundt's time believed that music was a universal language. Scholarship at the time was limited to European music and treated all other as its (possibly distant) relatives.

By the 1990s the notion of universals was widely accepted. Seeger, for instance, categorized his interpretation of musical universals by using Venn diagrams to create five universals qualities of music. Harwood claimed that looking for causality relationships and "deep structure" (as advanced by Chomsky) is a fruitless way to look for universals. Nettl asserted that music is not universal and is instead particular because culture's influence takes music in so many different directions.<ref name="Nettl20052">Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp He claimed that while music is not universal, types of music are not as mutually unintelligible as human languages. He thus adopted the term dialect rather language. He stated that despite music's wide variety, the ways in which people sing and play bear significant similarities. Other ethnomusicologists also denied the existence of musical universals, including List and McAllester. Eventually, the search shifted from universals to near-universals.<ref name="McAllester 1971 379–3802">Template:Cite book</ref> McAllester put qualities such as tonal center, a course, an ending, and the ability to stimulate feelings and performers. Music's universality is its ability to affect the mind. McAllester highlights music's ability to generate out of body experience, religion, and sex.

In response to McAllester, 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.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Wachsmann's belief was echoed by another researcher who shared the belief that the universal lies in the specific way music reaches the listener. Music communicates to the members of the in-group only. This relativity goes to prove that people are used to thinking of a certain phenomenon that marries indescribable components that we resemble to what we know as music from our reference. It is also here that Wachsmann acknowledges that part of the problem of identifying universals in music is that it requires a set definition of music, but he does not think that the lack of a definition does not need to "disturb us unduly because usage will decide whether the emphasis is on primarily utilitarian speech or on speech that creates "special time" in a culture. And in any case, phenomena do have a way of belonging to more than one kind of continuum at the same time".

List stated that music possesses significance only to the group that it is produced by/around: "to members of the in-group only".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp He also 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.<ref name="Harwood 1976 521–5332">Template:Cite book</ref> Nettl disputes this logic, saying that lack of exclusivity does not mean that a trait is not universal.<ref name="Nettl20052" />

Dane Harwood, approached the question of universality in music from a psychological perspective. His view is that universals in music are basic human cognitive and social processes. He calls this an "information processing approach" and considers music as a complex auditory stimulus that affects the human perceptual and cognitive system. This suggests that stimuli that do not produce such effects do not qualify as music.<ref name="Harwood 1976 521–5332" />

File:Rank-2 temperaments with the generator close to a fifth and period an octave.jpg

Note the number of Western and non-Western tunings that occur within the valid tuning range of the syntonic temperament.

One aspect of music is tuning. Many musical traditions' tuning's notes align with their dominant instrument's timbre's partials<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and fall on the tuning continuum of syntonic temperament, suggesting that syntonic temperament tunings (and closely related temperaments) may be a potential universal.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Linguistics and semiotics

In 1949, anthropologist Leslie White wrote, "the symbol is the basic unit of all human behavior and civilization", and that use of symbols is a distinguishing human characteristic. Once symbolism was at the core of anthropology, scholars sought to examine music as a symbol or system of signs or symbols, leading to the establishment of musical semiotics.<ref name=Nettl2005/>Template:Rp Nettl discussed issues relating ethnomusicology to semiotics, including the variety of culturally dependent, listener-derived meanings attributed to music and the problems of authenticity in assigning meaning to music.<ref name=Nettl2005/>Template:Rp Some of the meanings associated with musical symbols relate to emotion, culture, and behavior, in much the same way as linguistic symbols.

The presence of symbolism in anthropology, linguistics, and musicology generated various analytical outlooks: anthropologists traditionally conceived of cultures as systems of symbols, while musicologists tended to explore symbols within particular repertories. Structural approaches seek to uncover interrelationships among symbolic human behaviors.<ref name=Nettl2005/>Template:Rp

In the 1970s scholars including Seeger and semiotician Nattiez, proposed repurposing methodology employed in linguistics as a way to study music.<ref name="ReferenceB">Seeger, Charles. 1975 [1970]. "Toward a Unitary Field Theory for Musicology." In Studies in Musicology, 102-138. Berkeley: University of California Press.</ref><ref name="Nattiez, Jean-Jacques 1973">Nattiez, Jean-Jacques. 1973. "Linguistics: A New Approach for Musical Analysis?" International Review of Aesthetics and Sociology of Music 4(1): 51-67.</ref> This approach, influenced by de Saussure, Peirce, and Lévi-Strauss, among others, focused on finding underlying symbolic structures in cultures and their musics.<ref name=Nettl2005/>Template:Rp

In a similar vein, Alton and Judith Becker theorized the existence of musical "grammars" in their studies of Javanese gamelan music. They proposed that music could be studied as symbolic and that it bore many resemblances to language, making semiotic study possible.<ref>Judith Becker and Alton L. Becker, "The Grammar of a Musical Genre, Srepegan," Journal of Music Theory 23 (1979), pp. 1–43.</ref> Nattiez suggested that classifying the study of music as a humanity rather than a science and taking a linguistic approach might prove more effective.<ref name="Nattiez, Jean-Jacques 1973"/>

Blacking also sought a parallel to linguistic analysis models by uncovering the grammar which he coined the Cultural Analysis of Music, that could generate all existing and all possible music. He wanted to "explain both the form, the social and emotional content, and the effects of music". Like Nattiez, Blacking saw a universal grammar as necessary for giving ethnomusicology a distinct identity. He felt that ethnomusicology was merely a place where anthropology and music overlapped, and lacked a distinguishing characteristic in scholarship. He urged others to consider non-musical processes that occur in the making of music, as well as its foundation in any given culture.<ref name=":7">Blacking, John. 1971. "Deep and Surface Structures in Venda Music." Yearbook of the International Folk Music Council 3: 91-108.</ref>

Some musical languages have been identified as more suited to linguistically related analysis than others. Indian music, for example, has been linked more directly to language than music of other traditions.<ref name=Nettl2005/> Critics of musical semiotics and linguistic-based analytical systems, such as Feld, argue that music only bears significant similarity to language in certain cultures and that linguistic analysis may ignore cultural context.<ref name=Nettl2005/>Template:Rp

Comparison

Some research features analytical comparisons. Different kinds of comparative studies display a varying degree of understanding between them.<ref name=Nettl2005/> Beginning in the late 60s, comparative ethnomusicologists typically used Alan Lomax's idea of cantometrics.<ref>Lomax, Alan. 1978 [1968] Folk Song Style and Culture. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books. pp. 3–33, 117-168.</ref> Some cantometric measurements are relatively reliable, such as wordiness, while others are not, such as precision of enunciation.<ref>Henry, Edward O. 1976. "The variety of Music in a North Indian Village: Reassessing Cantometrics." Ethnomusicology 20(1):49-66.</ref>

Feld's approach deals with pairwise comparisons about competence, form, performance, environment, theory, and value/equality.<ref name=":6"/> Nettl noted in 2003 that comparative study had fallen in and out of style, noting that whatever its validity, it attracts criticism over ethnocentrism.<ref name=Nettl2005/>Template:Rp

Insider/outsider epistemology

The relevance and implications of insider and outsider distinctions within ethnomusicological writing and practice has been a subject of debate, covered by Nettl, Rice, and others.

The debate is 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 ethnomusicologists examining the music of other cultures, often finding it to be inferior to Western music. Thia led musicians in those "host" cultures to object to such researchers, with claims of "musical colonialism".<ref name="Nettl2005" />Template:RpNettl wrote about three conceptions common in host cultures:<ref name="Nettl2005" />Template:Rp

• The intentions of Western ethnomusicologists are not to understand other music in its own terms, but to compare it to Western music.
• Western ethnomusicologists want to apply their own methodologies, which are not appropriate for local music.
• Ethnomusicologists ignore subtle differences across different regions.

Nettl discusses personal and global issues pertaining to field researchers, particularly Westerners.<ref name="Nettl2005" />Template:Rp Considering that ethnomusicology intersects with other fields, it is appropriate to consider McDougall's phrase "making the unfamiliar, familiar".<ref name=":8">Wagoner, Brady. 2008. "Commentary: Making the Familiar Unfamiliar." Culture & Psychology 14(4): 467.</ref> As in social psychology, the "unfamiliar" is encountered in three ways:<ref name=":8" />

• Two cultures come into contact with elements that are not immediately explicable to the other;
• Experts within a society produce knowledge, which must then be communicated to the public;
• Active minorities attempt to communicate their perspective to the majority.

Nettl has been vocal about the effect of subjective understanding on research. As he describes, a fieldworker might attempt to immerse themselves into a host culture to increase understanding. This, however, can blind the researcher and compromise objectivity. The researcher begins to feel like an expert when, in fact, they remain an outsider no matter the amount of research, because they are from a different culture.

The background of each individual influences the focus of study because of the comfort level with the material. Nettl characterizes the majority of outsiders as "simply members of Western society who study non-Western music, or members of affluent nations who study the music of the poor, or maybe city folk who visit the backward villages in their hinterland."<ref name="Nettl2005" />Template:Rp This points to possible ethnocentric origins of researching foreign and exotic music. Unequal power relations come into focus.

Nettl asserted a binary that roughly equates to Western and Nonwestern. He pointed out what he feels are flaws in Western thinking through the analyses of multiple societies, and promotes the notion of collaborating, with a greater focus on acknowledging the contribution of native experts. He writes, "The idea of joint research by an 'insider' and an 'outsider' has been mentioned as a way of bridging the chasms."<ref name="Nettl2005" />Template:Rp Such joint research has been limited and the degree to which this can solve the insider/outsider dilemma is questioned. Nettl claimed that every concept is studied through a personal perspective, but "a comparison of viewpoints may give the broadest possible insight".<ref name="Nettl2005" />Template:Rp

The position of ethnomusicologists as outsiders looking in on a music culture, was discussed in terms of Said's theory of Orientalism. Said claimed that Westerners are trapped in an imagined or romanticized view of "the Other", situated within a colonial mindset.<ref name="said.orientalism">Template:Cite book</ref> 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."

Nettl argued that some of these concerns are no longer valid, as ethnomusicologists purged orientalist approaches that homogenize and totalize music. He explored further intricacies within the insider/outsider dichotomy by deconstructing the notion of insider, contemplating what geographic, social, and economic factors distinguish insiders from outsiders. He noted that scholars of "more industrialized African and Asian nations" see themselves as outsiders in regard to their own rural communities.<ref name="Nettl2005" /> Even though these individuals are in the minority, and ethnomusicology and its scholarship is generally written from a western perspective, Nettl disputed the notion of the native as the eternal other and the outsider as a westerner by default.Template:Citation needed

Rice discussed his experience as an outsider trying to learn Bulgarian music. He had a difficult time because of his Western perspective. He then worked to learn the music from a Bulgarian perspective.<ref name=":14" /> Although the Bulgarian people said that he learned well, he admitted that "areas of the tradition (...) elude my understanding and explanation. (...) Some sort of culturally sensitive understanding (...) will be necessary to close this gap."<ref name="Rice94">Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp

Ultimately, Rice argued that despite the impossibility of objectivity, ethnomusicologists may still learn from self-reflection. He stated the world is constructed with preexisting symbols that distort any "true" understanding of the world. He suggested that no ethnomusicologist can come to an objective understanding or understand foreign music in the same way that a native would understand it. In other words, an outsider cannot become an insider. However, an ethnomusicologist can still come to a meaningful understanding of that music. Rice suggested "five principles for the acquisition of cognitive categories in this instrumental tradition" among Bulgarian musicians.<ref name="Rice94" />Template:Rp However, as an outsider, Rice noted that his "understanding passed through language and verbal cognitive categories" whereas the Bulgarian instrumental tradition lacked "verbal markers and descriptors of melodic form" so "each new student had to generalize and learn on his own the abstract conceptions governing melodies without verbal or visual aids."<ref name="Rice94" />Template:Rp With these two methods for learning music, an outsider searching for verbal descriptions versus an insider learning by imitation, represent the essential differences between Rice's culture and the Bulgarian culture.

Relatedly, how should an insider analyze music? Nettl's approach would be to use categories defined by the host culture.<ref name="Nettl2005" /><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> In this way, one can distinguish themselves from the outsider using some slight insider insight.

Kingsbury asked, assuming it is impossible to study music outside of one's culture, what if that culture is your own?<ref name="Kingsbury">Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp He decided to apply fieldwork techniques to study an American conservatory. He attempted to approach the conservatory as an outsider, doing his best to repress his experiences and prior 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 "strikingly decentralized".<ref name="Kingsbury" />Template:Rp Based on professors' absences, he questioned the conservatory's commitment to certain subjects. His analysis featured four main observations:<ref name="Kingsbury" />Template:Rp

• a high premium on teacher individuality,
• teachers' role as nodal points that reinforce a patron-client-like system of social organization,
• enforcement of the aural traditions of musical literacy,
• the conflict between this client/patron structure and the school's administrative structure.

Ultimately, Kingsbury found the conservatory system to be inherently flawed.<ref name=Kingsbury />Template:Rp In 1997, Kingsbury continued his critical examination of the field arguing that the discipline is weakened by the tendency of researchers to study music from various cultures through the lens of their own.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Craft interviewed dozens of (mostly) Americans of all ages, genders, ethnicities, and backgrounds, who answered questions about the role of music in their lives. Each interviewee had their own internal organization of the music they knew. Some cared about genre, others the artist. For some, music was deeply important while others had no interest.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Applied ethnomusicology

Applied ethnomusicology uses music as a device to build bridges and create positive change. Titon thinks of ethnomusicology as the study of people making music, where applied ethnomusicology is "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".<ref name="loc.gov">Titon, Jeff (2015) What is Applied Ethnomusicology & Why Did They Say so Many Terrible Things About it?. [Video] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/webcast-8477/.</ref>

The first appearance of the term in an official SEM publication was 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."<ref name="MerriamAOM" />Template:Rp Applied ethnomusicology's purpose is knowledge for the sake of positive impact on society. One part of applied ethnomusicology is advocacy. This includes working with a community to move social initiatives forward, and "acting as an intermediary between cultural insiders and outsiders".<ref name="loc.gov" /> The became widely known in the 1990s, but many fieldworkers were already practicing it. For example, McAllester and Nettl's fieldwork on Enemy Way music showed how applied ethnomusicology can increase understanding for the betterment of the Navajo Nation.<ref name="doi.org">Template:Cite journal</ref> Fieldwork is a crucial part of 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."<ref>Allen, Matthew Harp. "Matthew Harp Allen – Interview with David Park McAllester." The Society for Ethnomusicology, Sound Matters, 24 Aug. 2015. </ref>

Ethnomusicology and Western music

Early in the history of ethnomusicology, debate focused on whether ethnomusicology applied Western music. Some early scholars, Hood, argued that ethnomusicology had two potential foci: all non-European art music, and music found in a given geographical area.<ref>Hood, Mantle. 1969. "Ethnomusicology." In Harvard Dictionary of Music. Second edition, ed. Willi Apel, 298-300. Cambridge: Harvard UP.</ref>

However, by the 1960s some ethnomusicologists were proposing that ethnomusicological methods applied to Western music. Merriam defined ethnomusicology simply as the study of music in culture, without regard to geography.<ref name="Merriam, Alan 1960"/>

This argument won the battle.<ref name=Nettl2005/>Template:Rp Pace claimed that questions regarding ethnomusicology's cultural scope purview tend to be political rather than scholarly.<ref name="core.ac.uk">Pace, Ian. 2006. "My contribution to the debate 'Are we all ethnomusicologists now?'" Presented at City University. pp. 1–9 https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/82963722.pdf</ref>

Despite the increased acceptance work on Western music, ethnomusicologists continue to focus on non-Western music. One of the few major ethnomusicological examinaters of Western art music, is Henry Kingsbury.<ref name="Kingsbury"/> Kingsbury studied a conservatory in the northeastern United States. He applied many traditional fieldwork methods; even though he was studying a group to which he belonged.<ref name="Kingsbury"/> He attempted to think of his own culture as primitive and tribal to create some distance, citing Weatherford's ethnography of the US Congress<ref>Weatherford, Jack McIver. 1981. Tribes on the Hill: The US Congress Rituals and Realities. Rawson-Wade.</ref> as a model.<ref name="Kingsbury"/>

Nettl addressed symbolism in Western music culture.<ref name=Nettl2005/>Template:Rp He cited an example of an analyst interpreting Beethoven in a literal fashion according to specific pieces of literature.<ref name=Nettl2005/>Template:Rp The analyst assigned meanings to motifs and melodies according to the literature. Nettl stated that this reveals how members of Western music culture are inclined to view art music as symbolic.<ref name=Nettl2005/>Template:Rp

Some ethnomusicological work focuses less on specific cultures. For example, Stokes' work on aspects of identity encompassed many cultures, both Western and non-Western.<ref>Stokes, Martin. 1994. Ethnicity, Identity, and Music: The Musical Construction of Place. Oxford: Berg. pp. 1-27</ref> He wrote about gender as it relates to music, analyzing the common phenomena of music gender-connected events, or how a culture may seek to "desex" musicians as a form of control.<ref>Stokes, Martin. 1994. Ethnicity, Identity, and Music: The Musical Construction of Place. Oxford: Berg. p. 23</ref> Stokes' insights do not exclude any culture. Stokes wrote extensively on identity, nationality, and location and how this manifests in Western music. He noted the presence of Irish music in migrant communities in England and American as a way for individuals to locate themselves in a different part of the world.<ref>Stokes, Martin. 1994. Ethnicity, Identity, and Music: The Musical Construction of Place. Oxford: Berg. p. 3</ref>

Ethnomusicology encompasses various approaches to the study of music and emphasizes their cultural, social, material, cognitive, and biological dimensions beyond the aural, which applies to all music. This approach has been called urban ethnomusicology.<ref>Stokes, Martin. 1994. Ethnicity, Identity, and Music: The Musical Construction of Place. Oxford: Berg. p. 18</ref>

Ethics

Ethics is defined by Merriam-Webster as, "the principles of conduct governing an individual or a group."<ref>"Ethics." Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ethics.</ref> Ethical concerns in fieldwork must inform interactions between cultures. Ethically, each party must be comfortable with the process and ensure that all parties are compensated fairly.<ref name="ReferenceD" /><ref name="Slobin, Mark 1993" /> In particular, complete permission must be obtained from performer(s) under study, while the music-related rights and obligations in the host society must be respected. Blacking claimed that ethnomusicologists working in other cultures are obligated to seek outcomes that benefit the host culture.<ref name=":7" />

Ethnocentrism (judging one culture by the values and standards of another) is another hazard. Ethnomusicology emphasizes the necessity of understanding the music of each culture in its own terms, particularly during fieldwork, and not subjecting participants to invidious comparisons.<ref name="Seeger, Anthony 1983" /> Many scholars, including Ravi Shankar and V. Kofi Agawu, have criticized ethnomusicology for ethnocetntrism, effectively dismissing non-European music as quaint or exotic.<ref name="Nettl2005" />Template:Rp

Slobin observed that discussion on ethics is founded on several assumptions, namely that:

• "Ethics is largely an issue for 'Western' scholars working in 'non-Western' societies";
• "Most ethical concerns arise from interpersonal relations between scholar and 'informant' as a consequence of fieldwork";
• "Ethics is situated within...the declared purpose of the researcher: the increase of knowledge in the ultimate service of human welfare." (a reference to Ralph Beals);
• "Discussion of ethical issues proceeds from values of Western culture."

Slobin remarked that ethics also varies across nations and cultures, and that the ethics from the cultures of both researcher and informant matter in fieldwork settings.<ref name="Slobin, Mark 1993" />

Some scenarios are ethically ambiguous, such as:<ref name="Slobin, Mark 1993" />

• The discovery of a rare musical instrument leads to the debate of whether it should be preserved in a museum or left in its native culture to be played, but not necessarily preserved.
• Video recordings may require consent from the subjects and may require the producers' presence to address questions from viewers.
• Appropriately dividing the proceeds and other benefits from a musical production.
• Possible need to censor factual negative information about a subject.
• Possible need to censor a musician who wants to perform something that the ethnomusicologist believes inappropriately represents local culture<ref name="Slobin, Mark 1993" />

Many ethical rules established by Westerners apply to Westerners studying in non-Western countries. These may not apply to ethnomusicologists studying their own culture,<ref>Agawu, Kofi. 2016. The African Imagination in Music. New York: Oxford University Press.</ref> beyond concerns that "arise from interpersonal relations between scholar and 'informant'".<ref>Slobin, Mark. 1993. "Ethical Issues." In Ethnomusicology: An Introduction, ed. H. Meyers, 329. New York: Norton.</ref> However, indigenous researchers risk "expos[ing] the vital organs of their culture" as much as an outsider.<ref name=Nettl2005/>Template:Rp<ref>Bracknell, Clint. 2015. "'Say You're a Nyungarmusicologist': Indigenous Research and Endangered Song." Musicology Australia 37(2): 199.</ref>

While copyright law is the primary method of protecting artistic works in Western society, other protections 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.<ref name="Scherzinger, Martin 1999">Template:Cite journal</ref>

The Society of Ethnomusicology Committee on Ethics publishes an official position statement on ethics.

Gender

Later researchers criticize historical ethnomusicology for gender-bias and androcentric models that distorted reality. Early research often focused on male musicians, in line with the greater attention paid to men in most domains at the time. This implicitly relied on the presumption that male musical practices were reflective of music of the whole society. In some societies, women were not allowed/encouraged to perform in public, reducing their participation in music and making it tougher for researchers to find female musicians.<ref name=Nettl2005/>Template:Rp Further, men initially dominated fieldwork and related institutions and tended to prioritize the experiences of men. Koskoff claimed that this bias complicates understanding the musical culture of a society.<ref name="Koskoff1987">Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp

Women contributed to ethnomusicological fieldwork from the 1950s onward, but women's and gender studies in ethnomusicology took off in the 1970s as it did in other domains. Koskoff articulated three stages in women's studies within ethnomusicology:<ref name="Nettl2005" />Template:Rp

• filling the gaps in the knowledge of women's contributions;
• discussing the relationships between women and men as expressed through music;
• integrating the study of sexuality, performance, semiotics, and other forms of meaning-making.

In the 1990s, ethnomusicologists began to consider fieldworker identity, including gender and sexuality. Feminist ethnomusicology emerged in the late 1980s (driven by third wave feminism), as women began conducting fieldwork instead of interpreting works recorded by men.<ref name="Koskoff1987" />Template:Rp

Koskoff claimed that gender is a useful lens for viewing the musical practices of a society. She claimed parallels between the sexual binary and others such as private/public, feeling/action, and sacred/profane.<ref name="Koskoff1987" />Template:Rp In some cultures, women's music is not viewed as music. Treatment of music thus can support or subvert gender roles. Koskoff further claimed that musical instruments' shapes and playing motions reflect gender roles.<ref name="Koskoff1987" />Template:Rp Koskoff also claimed that female musical behavior is affiliated with heightened sexuality, and that different cultures hold similar criteria of eroticized dance movements (e.g. "among the Swahili...all-female gathering where learn the 'right' sexual movements).<ref name="Koskoff1987" />Template:Rp Koskoff claimed that in certain cultures, public female musical performance is linked to female sexuality and to implied or actual prostitution that is not typically part of private performance.<ref name="Koskoff1987" />Template:Rp

She claimed that public music performance by single women of child-bearing age was typically associated with sexuality,<ref name="Koskoff1987" />Template:Rp while that of older/married women downplayed or even denied their sexuality.<ref name="Koskoff1987" />Template:Rp This reflects the traditional view that a woman's sexuality decreases with age/marriage.

In cultures that hinder women's public performance, women-centric performance spaces may offer women a way to express female identity outside the age/marriage sexuality binary.<ref name="Koskoff1987" />Template:Rp In some cultures, women have encoded symbolic behavior and language into their performances to protest an unwanted marriage, mock a suitor, or express homosexuality that is not apparent to men in the audience.<ref name="Koskoff1987" />Template:Rp As such, music performance may maintain, protest, or challenge gender norms.<ref name="Koskoff1987" />Template:Rp Koskoff claimed that women who become popular in mainstream culture may take on masculine-coded qualities, even their expression of femininity initially helped them.<ref name="Koskoff1987" />Template:Rp

Doubleday claimed that men may attempt to dominate their instruments, while women do not.<ref name=":3" />Template:Rp If a female's allure is more important for her success than her music, the latter may not sustain her. Doubleday defines "suitable" instruments for women as those that require no physical exertions which do not disrupt the graceful stereotype of a woman.<ref name=":3">Template:Cite journal</ref>Template:Rp

Schreffler described the role of Punjabi women in music in the context of migration. Women are often the bearers of tradition in Punjabi culture, performing in many traditional Punjabi rituals, including musical rituals, which help enable emigrants to connect with Punjabi culture wherever they may be.<ref>Schreffler, Gibb. 2012. "Migration Shaping Media: Punjabi Popular Music in a Global Historical Perspective." Popular Music and Society 35(3): 336.</ref> Schreffler claimed that as a result of migration, bhangra music allowed women to mingle with men in non-traditional ways.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Similarly, a 2026 study of gender dynamics within Orthodox Jewish culture documented how partnership minyanim dance reinterpreted Orthodox Jewish religious law to establish a new context for women's performance,<ref name="jstor.org">Template:Cite journal</ref> escaping the tradition of excluding women from religious music for reasons of female modesty.<ref name="Dale, Gordon 2015, p. 48">Dale, Gordon. "Music and the Negotiation of Orthodox Jewish Gender Roles in Partnership 'Minyanim.'" Contemporary Jewry, vol. 35, no. 1, 2015, p. 48. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43548401. Accessed 2020-11-24.</ref> and across cultures.<ref name="jstor.org" /> Orthodox men insisted that it was impossible for a man to hear a woman singing without experiencing it as a sexual provocation, while male partnership minyan participants concluded instead that considerations of modesty were not applicable in the context of their prayer.<ref name="Dale, Gordon 2015, p. 49">Dale, Gordon. "Music and the Negotiation of Orthodox Jewish Gender Roles in Partnership 'Minyanim.'" Contemporary Jewry, vol. 35, no. 1, 2015, p. 49. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43548401. Accessed 2020-11-24.</ref> Therefore, a woman's singing could be considered an act of rebellion against Orthodox power structures.<ref name="Dale, Gordon 2015, p. 48" /> Dale stated that women's music initiatives such as Indonesian women chanting from the Qur'an, requires Orthodoxy to create a new religious space in which men and women can express themselves.<ref name="Dale, Gordon 2015, p. 49" /> While restrictions on female roles in worship mean that minyanim must focus more on partnership than equality, partnership minyanim can forge a prayer space that encourages women's voices.<ref name="Dale, Gordon 2015, p. 49" /> He described one interaction with an older woman who was uncomfortable leading religious worship, but appreciated observing other women in that role. Singing alongside women in an unrestrained manner was a comfortable and fulfilling way for her to practice feminism.<ref>Dale, Gordon. "Music and the Negotiation of Orthodox Jewish Gender Roles in Partnership 'Minyanim.'" Contemporary Jewry, vol. 35, no. 1, 2015, pp. 47-8. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43548401. Accessed 2020-11-24.</ref>

Efforts to document and preserve women's contributions to ethnomusicology have increased, including collecting ethnomusicological works and related literature that address gender inequities within musical performance and musical analysis.<ref>Bowers, Jane, and Urban Bareis. "Bibliography on Music and Gender - Women in Music." The World of Music, vol. 33, no. 2, 1991, pp. 65–103. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43561305.</ref>

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.<ref name=":9">Template:Cite book</ref>

The Gender and Sexualities Taskforce within the society for ethnomusicology works to increase the presence and stature of gender/sexuality/LGBTQ/feminist scholarship.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The Society of Ethnomusicology awards the Marcia Herndon Prize<ref>Marcia Herndon Prize (Gender and Sexualities Section) - Society for Ethnomusicology, https://www.ethnomusicology.org/page/Prizes_Herndon.</ref> honoring exceptional ethnomusicological work in gender and sexuality including works that focus upon lesbian, gay, bisexual, two-spirited, homosexual, transgendered and multiple gender issues and communities, as well as to commemorate Herndon's contributions in promoting<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> works by women that compare the philosophies and behaviors of male and female ethnomusicologists and musicians,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> along dimensions of spirituality, female empowerment, and culturally-defined gender-related duties.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Technology

Manual examined the effect of technology on non-western music. He traced the historical development of the phonograph, radio, cassette recordings, and television, reporting that technology had commoditized music in many societies, and had lost the capacity to unite a community.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Stokes studied how recorded music conferred the ability to listen to music removed from its social setting, potentially changing its interpretation and role and that technology also democratized recording and listening, reducing the power of governments to limit what residents can listen to.<ref name=":4">Template:Cite book</ref>

Lysloff and Gay, Jr. claimed that digital recordings created a subculture of easy music sharing and distribution outside the control of industry, before industry responded by creating even simpler streaming services.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Intellectual property

Copyright is the "exclusive right to make copies, license, and otherwise exploit a literary, musical, or artistic work, whether printed, audio, video, etc."<ref>"Copyright." Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com, n.d. Web. 13 Dec. 2017.</ref> Copyright dictates where credit and money are allocated. While ethnomusicologists conduct fieldwork, they interact with indigenous people. Once complete, they leave with material including interviews, recordings, and text. Copyright protects both researchers and creators. However, legal matters are country-specific, for instance in China<ref>Li, Juqian (2022). China's Legal Framework for Supporting Protection and Sustainability of Artistic Heritage. In David G. Hebert and Jonathan McCollum, (Eds.), "Ethnomusicology and Cultural Diplomacy". Lexington Books (Rowman & Littlefield), pp.297-311. Template:ISBN</ref> and India.<ref>Choudhary, Karan (2022). Cultural Heritage and Music Diplomacy: The Legal Framework in India. In David G. Hebert and Jonathan McCollum, (Eds.), "Ethnomusicology and Cultural Diplomacy". Lexington Books (Rowman & Littlefield), pp.277-295. Template:ISBN</ref>

In other cultures intellectual property is a matter of tradition. The Suyá people in Brazil root ownership in the animals, spirits, and entire communities. US copyright law invests named individuals (e.g., Lennon and McCartney) with ownership, not animals, spirits, or communities. In some cases copyright is granted instead to the informant-performer, the researcher, the producer, or the funding organization.<ref name="Seeger, Anthony 1992">Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp

In Senegal, copyright benefits such as music royalties are allocated to the Senegalese government, which hosts a talent competition, where the winner receives the royalties. Scherzinger stated that spiritual inspiration did not prevent composers from copyrighting their creations. Furthermore, he draws a paralle between group ownership of a song is not significantly and the influence in Western classical music of multiple composers on any individual work.<ref name="Scherzinger, Martin 1999"/>

Identity

Music's connections to identity have been discussed throughout the history of ethnomusicology. Turino defines "self," "identity," and "culture" as habits.<ref name=":16">Turino, Thomas. 2008. Music as Social Life: The Politics of Participation. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. p. 95</ref> Musical habits and responses to them lead to cultural formations of identity and identity groups. Stokes claimed that music creates barriers among groups and that identity defines them.<ref name=":4" />

Music reinforces identity, while identity can shape musical innovation. Lipsitz's 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.<ref name=":5">Template:Cite journal</ref>Template:Rp By incorporating Mexican folk music and modern-day barrio influences, Mexican rock-and-roll musicians in LA made commercially successful records that included content about their community, history, and identity. Minority groups sought solidarity by sharing experience with others. Lipsitz claimed these experiences created unity among, marginalized cultures.<ref name=":5" />

Lipsitz highlighted Los Lobos as an example. They mixed traditional Mexican folk elements with white rockabilly and rhythm and blues, while conforming to none of those genres. Their goal was to broaden their audience. Chicano artists connected their music to community subcultures and institutions reflecting speech, dress, car customizing, art, theater, and politics.<ref name=":5" />

Music creates group and personal identities. Frith describes music's ability to manipulate moods and organize daily life.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Many scholars have commented on how musical taste contributes to a sense of unique self-identity developed through the practices of listening to and performing certain music.<ref name=":16" />

Fieldworkers have begun to consider how their identity relates to or differs from cultural norms where they study and how that can affect their work with other cultures.<ref>Miller, Rebecca. "Divine Utterances: The Performance of Afro-Cuban Santería by Katherine J. Hagedorn." Ethnomusicology 50.1 (Winter 2006): 149-151. p. 149</ref>

Nationalism

Template:Main Ethnomusicology frequently considers the relationship between music and nationalist movements across the world.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

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.<ref name="oxfordmusiconline.com">Template:Cite web</ref> Collector-composers became "national composers" when they composed songs that became emblematic of a national identity. Namely, Frédéric Chopin gained international recognition as a composer of emblematic Polish music despite having no ancestral ties to the Polish peasantry.<ref name=Stokes1994>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp 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.<ref name="oxfordmusiconline.com"/> D'Erlanger revived older musical forms in Tunisia in order to reconstruct "Oriental music," playing on instruments such as the ud and ghazal. Ensembles using such instruments were featured at the 1932 Congress of Arab Music.<ref name=Stokes1994/>

Globalization

Towards the end of the 20th century, ethnomusicology blossomed in American academia. Ethnomusicology gave students another vehicle for exploring other cultures, including for students from various cultures. Recordings from around the world began to emerge in the Euro-American music industry. Many scholars ventured abroad to study other cultures. Scholars learned firsthand about faraway cultures.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

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.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> The term was a market success in the US, but made no sense elsewhere.<ref name=":10">Template:Cite book</ref>

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.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

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 50s 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.<ref name="Schreffler, Gibb 2012">Template:Cite journal</ref>Template:Rp By then it encompassed a more diverse set of experiences: "East/West, guardians of tradition/embracers of new technology, local/diaspora".<ref name="Schreffler, Gibb 2012" />Template:Rp

While visiting Los Angeles, Mexican poet and diplomat Octavio Paz observed that the culture of Mexico seemed to float around the city. The culture neither quite existed nor entirely vanished. Mexican-American culture in Los Angeles can be found in various affinity groups that relate to each other. The groups bond over their bifocal existence in between spaces, their juxtaposition of multiple realities, and their families of resemblance.<ref name="Lipsitz 1986 157–177">Template:Cite journal</ref>

Particularly in Chicano music, musicians were strongly encouraged to take on a separate identity. One form of success might be record sales, while another form might be receiving respect as contributors to music masterpieces. The 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.<ref name="Lipsitz 1986 157–177" />

Another example of globalization in music concerns UNESCO-recognized traditions, those promoted by national governments, as cases of notable global heritage. In this way, local traditions are introduced to a global audience as something that is so important as to both represent a nation and be of relevance to all people everywhere.<ref>Howard, Keith. 2018. The Life and Death of Music as East Asian Intangible Cultural Heritage. In: Hebert, D. G. (Ed.), International Perspectives on Translation, Education and Innovation in Japanese and Korean Societies. New York: Springer.</ref>

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 those 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.<ref name=":17">Template:Cite journal</ref>Template:RP

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.<ref name=":17" />Template:RP

Perceptions of impropriety can be subjective. For example, American singer/composer James Brown's borrowings of African rhythms, and African musician Fela Kuti's borrowings from Brown did not raise alarms, unlike Talking Heads' borrowings from Brown.<ref name=":17" />Template:RP

Cognition

Template:Main Template:See also 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 and reductions, musical performance and ability, musical universals, musical origins, music development, cross-cultural cognition, evolution, and more.

The brain perceives auditory stimuli as music according to gestalt principles, or "principles of grouping." Gestalt principles include proximity, similarity, closure, and continuation. Each principle illustrates a different aspect of auditory stimuli that cause them to be perceived as a group, as a musical unit. Proximity dictates that auditory stimuli that are nearTemplate:Clarify to each other are seen as a group. Similarity dictates that similar stimuli are perceived as a group. Closure is the tendency to treat an incomplete auditory pattern as a whole—the brain simulates the missing sounds. Continuation dictates that auditory stimuli are more likely to be perceived as a group when they occur in a continuous, detectable, recognized pattern.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Structurally, the auditory system is able to distinguish pitches (sounds of varying frequency) via complementary vibrating of the eardrum. It can parse incoming sound signals via pattern recognition.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> When the fundamental pitch from a harmonic spectrum is absent, the brain supplies that missing fundamental.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Absolute pitch is learned at a critical age, or for a familiar timbre only.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Debate still occurs over whether Western chords are naturally consonant or dissonant, and whether that ascription is learned.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Relation of pitch to frequency is a universal, while scale construction is culturally specific.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Training in a cultural scale results in melodic and harmonic expectations for how music is arranged.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

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 and does correspond 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). Within Inanga and Kubandwa songs, she synthesizes her scientific research on the subjective/objective dichotomy of timbre with culture-specific phenomena, such as the interactions between music (the known world) and spiritual communication (the unknown world).<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Rhythm

African and Western rhythms appear to be organized differently. Western rhythms may be based on ratio relationships (e.g., halves and quarters), while African rhythms may be organized additively (each note has its own duration).<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> 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.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

It is generally accepted that errors in performance give insight into perception of a music's structure, but these studies are restricted to Western score-reading tradition thus far.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Decolonizing ethnomusicology

In humanities and education studies, the term decolonization describes "an array of processes involving social justice, resistance, sustainability, and preservation".<ref name="ReferenceE">Chavez, Luis and Russel Skelchy. "Decolonizable Spaces in Ethnomusicology." Society for Ethnomusicology Student News 12(2): 20-21.</ref> Ethnomusicologists have used decolonial approaches for diverse purposes, including showing how non-Western nations use music projects to negotiate international relations,<ref name="Hebert.2022">Template:Cite book</ref> and to promote equality and transparency in intercultural music performance.<ref name="Ostersjo.2023">Template:Cite book</ref> As early as 2006, decolonization became a central topic of discussion, although some ethnomusicologists considered it to be only a metaphor.<ref name="ReferenceE" /> For ethnomusicology, understanding decolonization means analyzing fundamental changes in power structures, worldviews, academia, and the university system.<ref name="ReferenceE" />

Initially, Western methods and beliefs dominated ethnomusicology, as shown in Alder's work from 1885<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> and Gilman's work from 1909,<ref>Gilman, Benjamin I. 1909 The science of exotic music. Science 30:532-35</ref> which exemplify that Eurocentric approach of analyzing music via musical scores. The arrival of recording technology and convenient travel, enabled more modern approaches.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> That 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 that time.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> However, representing/interpreting music of all cultures with a standard system and notation can also be useful. Western music notation and musical systems serve as a crucial foundation for 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.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Music archives are in part a legacy of colonial ethnomusicology.<ref>Koch, Lars-Christian. 2006. "Music Archives - A Legacy of Colonial Ethnomusicology or a Model for the Digital Democracy?." Society for Ethnomusicology Abstracts: 100.</ref> Comparative musicologists used archives such as the Berlin Phonogramm-Archiv to study the world's music.<ref name="Fenn, John B 2006">Fenn, John B. 2006. "Engaging Our Data: Questions of Access, Methodology, and Use with Ethnomusicological Field Video." Society for Ethnomusicology Abstracts: 100.</ref> Recovery and repatriation of archival records are one way to decolonizing the field. The International Library of African Music is one recipient of such material.<ref>Thram, Diane. 2014. The legacy of music archives in historical ethnomusicology: A model for engaged ethnomusicology. In J. McCollum and D. G. Hebert (Eds.), Theory and Method in Historical Ethnomusicology. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. 309–335.</ref>

Proposed approaches to decolonization include:<ref name="ReferenceE" />

• ethnomusicologists addressing their roles as scholars,
• the university system being analyzed and revised,
• the philosophies and practices, as a discipline being changed.

Kibbee proposed that scholars admit scholarship presented via non-written media. He claimed to observe a Western bias against listening as an intellectual practice that he further claimed reduced the diversity of opinion and backgrounds. He linked this to colonialism via the ostensible Kantian belief that the act of listening was seen as a "danger to the autonomy of the enlightened liberal subject". He claimed that colonists tied social mobility to the ability to assimilate European schooling. Many such barriers kept other voices out of academia, such as the denial of intellectual depth in indigenous peoples.<ref name="ReferenceF">Kibbee, Brendan. "Decolonizing through Sound: Can Ethnomusicology Become More Audible?." Society for Ethnomusicology Student News 12(2): 21-23.</ref>

Ethnicity

Giving a strict definition to ethnicity is considered difficult by many scholars, but it can be best understood in terms of the creation and preservation of boundaries, in contrast to the social "essences" in the gaps between these boundaries. In fact, ethnic boundaries can both define and maintain social identities, and music can be used in local social situations by members of society to create such boundaries.<ref name=Stokes1994/>Template:Rp The idea of authenticity becomes relevant here, where authenticity is not a property of the music or performance itself, but is a way of telling both insiders and outsiders that this is the music that makes one's society unique.<ref name=Stokes1994/>Template:Rp Authenticity can also be seen as the idea that a certain music is inextricably bound to a certain group or physical place.<ref name="Radano, Ronald 2001. P. 28">Radano, Ronald Michael., et al. "Introduction: Music and Race, Their Past, Their Presence." Music and the Racial Imagination, by Ronald Michael Radano and Philip Vilas Bohlman, University of Chicago Press, 2001, p. 28.</ref> It can give insight into the question of the "origin" of music, in that it by definition bears connection to the geographical, historical, and cultural aspects of music.<ref name="Radano, Ronald 2001. P. 28" /> For instance, holding that particular aspects of African-American music are actually fundamentally African is critical to claims of authenticity in the global African diaspora.<ref name="Radano, Ronald 2001. Pp. 28-29">Radano, Ronald Michael., et al. "Introduction: Music and Race, Their Past, Their Presence." Music and the Racial Imagination, by Ronald Michael Radano and Philip Vilas Bohlman, University of Chicago Press, 2001, pp. 28-29.</ref> In terms of how authenticity can be connected to the concept of place, consider the concept of authenticity in Jewish music throughout the Jewish diaspora. "Jewish" music is bound to both the Land of Israel and the ancient Temple of Jerusalem.<ref name="Radano, Ronald 2001. P. 29">Radano, Ronald Michael., et al. "Introduction: Music and Race, Their Past, Their Presence." Music and the Racial Imagination, by Ronald Michael Radano and Philip Vilas Bohlman, University of Chicago Press, 2001, p. 29.</ref>

Although groups are self-defining in how they express the differences between self and other, colonization, domination, and violence within developing societies cannot be ignored.<ref name=Stokes1994/>Template:Rp In a society, often dominant groups brutally oppress minority ethnicities from their classification systems. Music can be used as a tool to propagate dominant classifications in such societies, and has been used as such by new and developing states especially through control of media systems.<ref name=Stokes1994/>Template:Rp Indeed, though music can help define a national identity, authoritarian states can control this musical identity through technology, in that they end up dictating what citizens can listen to.<ref name=Stokes1994/>Template:Rp Governments often value music as a symbol, which can be used to promote supra-national entities.<ref name=Stokes1994/>Template:Rp They often use this to argue the right to participate in or control a significant cultural or political event, such as Turkey's involvement in the Eurovision Song Contest.<ref name=Stokes1994/>Template:Rp

Historically, anthropologists have believed that ethnomusicologists deal with something that by definition cannot be synonymous with the social realities of the present world. In response, ethnomusicologists sometimes present a concept of society that purely exists within an all-encompassing definition of music.<ref name=Stokes1994/>Template:Rp Ethnomusicologist Charles Seeger agrees with this, giving an example of how Suya society (in Brazil) can be understood in terms of its music. Seeger notes how "Suya society was an orchestra, its village was a concert hall, and its year a song."<ref name=Stokes1994/>Template:Rp

Music helps one understand oneself in relation to people, places, and times.<ref name=Stokes1994/>Template:Rp It informs one's sense of physical place—a musical event (such as a collective dance) uniquely evokes collective memories and experiences of place. Both ethnomusicologists and anthropologists believe that music provides the means by which political and moral hierarchies are developed.<ref name=Stokes1994/>Template:Rp Music allows people to comprehend both identities and physical places, as well as the boundaries that divide them.<ref name=Stokes1994/>Template:Rp

Gender is another area where boundaries are "performed" in music.<ref name=Stokes1994/>Template:Rp Instruments and instrumental performance can contribute to a society's definition of gender, in that behaviour of performers conforms to the gender expectations of society (e.g. men should not display effort, or women should feign reluctance to perform).<ref name=Stokes1994/>Template:Rp Issues of ethnicity and music intersect with gender studies in fields like historical musicology, the study of popular music, and ethnomusicology. Indeed, gender can be seen as a symbol of social and political order, and controlling gender boundaries is thus a means of controlling such order. Gender boundaries reveal the most deeply intrinsic forms of domination in a society, that subsequently provide a template for other forms of domination. However, music can also provide a means of pushing back against these boundaries by blurring the boundary between what is traditionally considered male and female.<ref name=Stokes1994/>Template:Rp

When one listens to foreign music, one tries to make sense of it in terms of one's own (familiar) music and musical worldviews, and this internal struggle can be seen as a power struggle between one's musical views and the other, foreign ones.<ref name=Stokes1994/>Template:Rp Sometimes, musicians celebrate ethnic plurality in problematic ways, in that they collect genres, and subsequently alter and reinterpret them in their own terms.<ref name=Stokes1994/>Template:Rp Societies often publicize so-called multi-cultural music performances simply for the promotion of their own self-image.<ref name=Stokes1994/>Template:Rp Such staged folklore begins to greatly diverge from the celebration of ethnic plurality it purportedly represents, and the music and dance being performed become meaningless when presented so entirely out of context.<ref name=Stokes1994/>Template:Rp In such a scenario, which is seen very commonly, the meaning of the performance is both created and controlled by the performers, the audience, and even the media of the society the performance takes place in.<ref name=Stokes1994/>Template:Rp

Music rarely remains stable in contexts of social change—"culture contact" causes music to be altered to whatever new culture it has come in contact with. In this way, minority communities can internalize the outside world through music—a kind of sense-making. They become able to deal with and control a foreign world on their own (musical) terms. Indeed, such integration of musical difference is an integral aspect of the creation of a musical identity, which can be seen in Seeger's description of the Brazilian Suya, who took music from an outside culture and made it their own as an "assertion of identity in a multi-ethnic social situation."<ref name=Stokes1994/>Template:Rp In addition, consider the development of East Indian culture. Many of the trademarks of East Indian society, such as the caste system and the Bhojpuri form of the Hindi language, are becoming obsolete, which erodes their concept of ethnic identity.<ref name="Manuel, Peter 2001. P. 318">Manuel, Peter. "Ethnic Identity, National Identity, and Music in Indo-Trinidadian Culture." Music and the Racial Imagination, by Ronald Michael Radano and Philip Vilas Bohlman, University of Chicago Press, 2001, p. 318.</ref> In light of these conditions, music has begun to play an unprecedented role in the concept of East Indian ethnic identity.<ref name="Manuel, Peter 2001. P. 318"/> Music can also play a transformative part in the formation of the identities of urban and migrant communities, which can be seen in the diverse and distinct musical cultures in the melting pot of communities in the US.<ref name=Stokes1994/>Template:Rp In the case of colonialism, the colonizer and the colonized end up repeatedly exchanging musical ideas.<ref name="Radano, Ronald 2001. P. 30">Radano, Ronald Michael., et al. "Introduction: Music and Race, Their Past, Their Presence." Music and the Racial Imagination, by Ronald Michael Radano and Philip Vilas Bohlman, University of Chicago Press, 2001, p. 30.</ref> For instance, in the Spanish colonization of the indigenous Native Americans, the resulting mestizo music reflects the intersection of these two culture spheres, and even gave way to new modes of musical expression bearing aspects of both cultures.<ref name="Radano, Ronald 2001. P. 30"/>

Ethnicities and class identities have a complicated relationship. Class can be seen as the relative control a group has over economic (relating to means of production), cultural, political, and social assets in various social areas.<ref name="Turino, Thomas 2001. P. 556">Turino, Thomas. "Race, Class, and Musical Nationalism in Zimbabwe." Music and the Racial Imagination, by Ronald Michael Radano and Philip Vilas Bohlman, University of Chicago Press, 2001, p. 556.</ref> In the case of migrant communities, the divide between the concepts of ethnicity and class blur (for instance, one ethnic group/class level provides cheap labor for the other, such as in the case of Latinx Mexican immigrants performing cheap farming labor for White Americans).<ref name=Stokes1994/>Template:Rp This blurring can also be seen in Zimbabwe, where White settlers determined a hierarchical social order divided by ethnicity: Blacks, others "coloureds," Asians, and Whites (who were at the top of the hierarchy).<ref name="Turino, Thomas 2001. P. 556"/> The concept of "geographical heritage" (where one cannot change where one's ancestors come from) contributed to this concept of immutability of this constructed hierarchy; White settlers enforced the ranks of this hierarchy through their definition of how "civilized" each ethnic group was (Whites being the most civilized).<ref name="Turino, Thomas 2001. P. 556"/>

However, one cannot simply match a class with a single musical style, as musical styles reflect the complex and often contradictory aspects of the society as a whole.<ref name=Stokes1994/>Template:Rp Marxist subcultural theory proposes that subcultures borrow and alter traits from the dominant culture to create a newly diverse range of available traits where the signs of the dominant culture remain, but are now part of a new and simultaneously subversive whole.<ref name=Stokes1994/>Template:Rp In fact, ethnicities are similar to classes in many ways. They are often either defined or excluded based on the rules of the dominant classificatory system of the society.<ref name=Stokes1994/>Template:Rp Thus, ethnic minorities are forced to figure out how to create their own identities within the control of the dominant classifications.<ref name=Stokes1994/>Template:Rp Ethnic minorities can also use music in order to resist and protest the dominant group. This can be seen in European Jews, African Americans, Malaysian-Chinese, and even in the Indonesian-Chinese, who expressed resistance through Chinese theater performances.<ref name="Kartomi, Margaret 2001. P. 309">Kartomi, Margaret J. "Indonesian-Chinese Oppression and the Musical Outcomes in the Netherlands East Indies." Music and the Racial Imagination, by Ronald Michael Radano and Philip Vilas Bohlman, University of Chicago Press, 2001, p. 309.</ref>

Medical ethnomusicology

Template:Main Scholars have characterized medical ethnomusicology as "a new field of integrative research and applied practice that explores holistically the roles of music and sound phenomena and related praxes in any cultural and clinical context of health and healing".Template:Fact Medical ethnomusicology often focuses specifically on music and its effect on the biological, psychological, social, emotional, and spiritual realms of health. In this regard, medical ethnomusicologists have found applications of music to deal with a broad range of health issues. Music has been helpful in the treatment of autism, dementia, AIDS and HIV, as well as in social and spiritual contexts through the restoration of community and the role of music in prayer and meditation. Recent studies have also shown how music can help to alter mood and serve as cognitive therapy.<ref>Barz, Gregory, Benjamin Koen, and Kenneth Brunnel-Smith. 2008. "Introduction: Confluence of Consciousness in Music, Medicine, and Culture." The Oxford Handbook of Medical Ethnomusicology. Ed. Benjamin Koen et al. New York: Oxford University Press. 3-17.</ref>

Academic programs

Many universities around the world offer ethnomusicology classes, offering both graduate and undergraduate degree-granting options, and act as centers for ethnomusicological research.<ref name=":13"/> The Society of Ethnomusicology maintains a list of such programs.<ref name=":13">Template:Cite web</ref> At the undergraduate level, students pursuing degrees in ethnomusicology often enroll in programs housed within Departments of Music. These programs provide a solid foundation in music theory, history, and performance, with an emphasis on world music traditions. Introductory classes have helped expand the popularity of the discipline to a diverse set of students.

For graduate students seeking more advanced training, master's and Ph.D. programs specifically in ethnomusicology are commonly available. These advanced programs delve into a wide range of subjects, including in-depth research design, music transcription and analysis, the exploration of cultural interactions, and the utilization of specialized ethnomusicological tools. Students also engage with music studies theory, and they can choose from a variety of electives and area studies to tailor their education to their specific interests. Proficiency in at least two languages is often required to conduct research in diverse cultural contexts, and students are encouraged to pursue independent research projects. The culmination of their academic journey typically involves the completion of a dissertation that contributes to the field's body of knowledge.

In popular culture

Global music festivals pertaining to ethnomusicology sometimes occur, most notably, WOMAD (World of Music, Arts and Dance). This yearly festival, first held in 1982, showcases a diverse range of artists and genres from around the world. This contributes to the rising popularity of ethnomusicological perspectives on a global scale.

A notable musical work heavily influenced by ethnomusicology is Paul Simon's album, Graceland (1986). Incorporating elements of South African music, Simon displays the significance of ethnomusicology in popularizing and amalgamating diverse musical traditions.

The string quartet called the Kronos Quartet has exhibited many connections to the practice of ethnomusicology. Throughout their years, many collaborations have occurred between the members of the quartet and traditional musicians from around the world. This exemplifies the cross-cultural nature of ethnomusicological research; Pieces of Africa (1992) is an album by the Kronos Quartet that clearly exhibits these qualities.

Ethnomusicology has also had its fair share of representation in literature. For example, in Karen Hesse's novel, The Music of Dolphins (1996), one character (Doctor Elizabeth Beck) is an ethnomusicologist researching the musical communication of dolphins, exemplifying ethnomusicology in fictional literature. Another work of literature with ethnomusicological components is The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson. This science fiction novel, published in 2013, presents an ethnomusicologist as its main protagonist. June Costa, the said protagonist, lives in a future society where art and creativity are tightly monitored. This novel revolves around the storyline of June Costa finding the hidden power of music as well as its potential to spur up change in a dystopian world.

In film, The Buena Vista Social Club (1999), directed by Wim Wenders, delves into traditional Cuban music and notably illustrates ethnomusicological elements in its portrayal of musicians and their cultural backbones. As well, the movie Songcatcher (2000) is loosely based on the ethnomusicology work of Olive Dame Campbell. In Inside Out 2 (2024), ethnomusicologist is briefly mentioned as a possible future career for the character Riley, but her personified emotion of joy does not know what it is. Her personified anxiety later sees being one as part of a possible bad future for Riley, but it is unclear if Anxiety knows what it is either.

Ethnochoreology

Definition

The definition of ethnochoreology stands to have many similarities with the current way of studying of ethnomusicology. With ethnochoreology's roots in anthropology taken into account, and by the way that it is studied in the field, dance is most accurately defined and studied within this academic circle as two parts: as "an integral part of a network of social events" and "as a part of a system of knowledge and belief, social behavior and aesthetic norms and values".<ref>Giurchescu, Anca. 2001. "The Power of Dance and Its Social and Political Uses." Yearbook for Traditional Music, vol. 33, pp. 109–121.</ref> That is, the study of dance in its performance aspects—the physical movements, costumes, stages, performers, and accompanied sound—along with the social context and uses within the society where it takes place.

Beginnings

Because of its growth alongside ethnomusicology, the beginning of ethnochoreology also had a focus on the comparative side of things, where the focus was on classifying different styles based on the movements used and the geographical location in a way not dissimilar to Lomax. This is best shown in "Benesh Notation and Ethnochoreology" in 1967 which was published in the ethnomusicology journal, where Hall advocates using the Benesh notation as a way of documenting dance styles so that it is "possible to compare styles and techniques in detail — even 'schools' within one style — and individual variations in execution from dancer to dancer."<ref>Hall, Fernau. (1967). Benesh Notation and Ethnochoreology. Ethnomusicology, 11(2), 188-198.</ref>

In the seventies and eighties, like with ethnomusicology, ethnochoreology had a focus on a very specific communicative type of "folklore music" performed by small groups and the context and performance aspects of dance were studied and emphasized to be a part of a whole "folkloric dance" that needed to be preserved. This was influenced by the same human centered "thick description" way of study that had moved into ethnomusicology. However, at this time, the sound and dance aspects of the performances studied were still studied and analyzed a bit separately from the context and social aspects of the culture around the dance.<ref name="Ceribašić, Naila 1998">Ceribašić, Naila. 1998. Ethnomusicology and Ethnochoreology at the Institute During the Nineties. Narodna umjetnost : hrvatski časopis za etnologiju i folkloristiku, 35(2), 66-66.</ref>

Current

Beginning in the mid eighties, there has been a reflexively interpretive way of writing about dance in culture that is more conscious of the impact of the scholar within the field and how it affects the culture and its relationship with the dance that the scholar is looking into.<ref name="Ceribašić, Naila 1998"/> For example, because most scholars until this point were searching for the most "authentic" folk, there was a lack of study on individual performers, popular dances, and dances of subgroup groups within a culture such as women, youth, and members of the LGBT community. In contrast, this newer wave of study wanted a more open study of dance within a culture. Additionally, there was a shift for a more mutual give and take between the scholar and the subjects, who in field work, also assist the scholars as teachers and informants.<ref>Zebec, Tvrtko. (2007). Experiences and Dilemmas of Applied Ethnochoreology. Narodna umjetnost : hrvatski časopis za etnologiju i folkloristiku, 44(1), 7-25.</ref>

Differences with ethnomusicology

Although there are many similarities between ethnochoreology and ethnomusicology, there is a large difference between the current geographical scope of released studies. For example, from the beginning of ethnomusicology, there was a large focus on types of music from Africa and Asia, due to them seeming to have the most deviation from their norm while ethnochoreology, also beginning in Europe, has long had extensive studies of the Eastern European "folk dances" with relatively little of African and Asian dances, however American studies have delved into Native American and Southeast Asian dance.<ref>McCormick, Charlie T, and Kim K White. 2010. "Dance, Folk." Folklore: An Encyclopedia of Beliefs, Customs, Tales, Music, and Art, Volume 1, ABC-CLIO, pp. 355–362.</ref> However, the very basis of this being a difference could be challenged on the basis that many European ethnomusicological and ethnochoreological studies have been done on the "home" folk music and dance in the name of nationalism.

Organizations

The Society for Ethnomusicology is, with the International Council for Traditional Music and the British Forum for Ethnomusicology, one of three major international associations for ethnomusicology. Its mission is "to promote the research, study, and performance of music in all historical periods and cultural contexts."<ref name="SocietyAbout">Template:Cite web</ref> Officially founded in 1955, its origins extend back to November, 1953 at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association in Philadelphia with an informal agreement between Willard Rhodes, David McAllester, and Alan P. Merriam.<ref>Merriam, Alan. 1953. "Introduction." Ethno-musicology Newsletter 1 (December), 1-2.</ref>

The International Council for Traditional Music (ICTM) is a scholarly non-governmental organization which focuses on the study, practice, documentation, preservation, and dissemination of traditional music and dance of all countries. Founded in London on September 22, 1947, it publishes the Yearbook for Traditional Music once a year and the Bulletin of the ICTM<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> three times a year. The organization was previously known as the International Folk Music Council (IFMC). In 1949, it helped found the UNESCO International Music Council and remains a non-governmental organization in formal consultative relations with UNESCO.

According to its website, the British Forum for Ethnomusicology began in 1973 as the United Kingdom chapter of the International Folk Music Council; the International Folk Music Council later changed its name to the International Council for Traditional Music, and its United Kingdom chapter became the British Forum for Ethnomusicology in 1995. The mission of the British Forum for Ethnomusicology "is to advance the study, practice, documentation, preservation and dissemination of all and any music."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

See also

Template:Library resources box Template:Portal For articles on significant individuals in this discipline, see the List of ethnomusicologists.

• List of musicologists
• Choreomusicology
• Fumio Koizumi Prize for Ethnomusicology
• List of musicology topics
• Prehistoric music
• Smithsonian Folkways
• Sociomusicology
• World music
• International Council for Traditional Music

Further reading

• Template:Cite book
• Template:Cite book
• Template:Cite book.
• Template:Cite book
• Template:Cite book

External links

• Society for Ethnomusicology
• International Council for Traditional Music
• British Forum for Ethnomusicology
• International Library of African Music (ILAM)
• The World and Traditional Music Section at the British Library Template:Webarchive
• The Archives of Traditional Music at Indiana University
• Ethnomusicology, Folk Music, and World Music (University of Washington)
• Outreach Ethnomusicology An Online Ethnomusicology Community and Fieldwork Resource
• SIL publications on Ethnomusicology
• Yale Music Library Research Guide for Ethnomusicology
• Oxford Handbook of Applied Ethnomusicology