Ethnomusicology and the Exiles (2016) (original) (raw)

Toward an ethnomusicology of the early music movement: Thoughts on bridging disciplines and musical …

Ethnomusicology, 2001

I. Ethnomusicology, Ethnographic Method, and "Non-Western" Music In an introduction to a special issue of the Journal of the American Musicological Society (JAMS) published in 1995, Regula Qureshi discussed the relationship between anthropology, history, and a broader musicology that includes ethnomusicology. Qureshi characterizes the "anthropologizing of music history," the primary and most productive relationship to date of anthropology and historical musicology, as beginning with "a recasting of the musical product into the realm of experience" (Qureshi 1995:335). The four essays that follow Qureshi's introduction interrogate music in culture through highlighting the notions of "dialogue, de-essentializing, and difference" (Qureshi 1995:339). Indeed, the specialJAMS issue builds on historical musicology's growing engagement with a range of anthropological theories that have served to enliven and enrich the musicological palette, forecast earlier in writings by Tomlinson (1984) and Treitler (1989). Ethnomusicologists, of course, have drawn freely on anthropology; indeed, they have spent much of the second half of the twentieth century trying to remake their own discipline in its image. To note just a few milestones, one might cite Merriam's Anthropology of Music (1964), Alan Lomax's Cantometrics (1976), Timothy Rice's remodeling of ethnomusicological theory (1987) based on readings of Clifford Geertz, and Mark Slobin's schema for transnational musics (1993) which draws upon Arjun Appardurai's notion of "ethnoscapes" (Appadurai 1990). Ethnomusicological research and writing have further interacted closely with a number of different streams of anthropological thought, ranging from structuralism, to symbolic, linguistic, and reflexive anthropology. While none of these efforts has resulted in a new theory that moves beyond its anthropological model, there have been, particularly recently, a number of increasingly nuanced case studies. Yet there is one area allied to anthropology in which ethnomusicologists alone have innovated. I have earlier suggested (Shelemay 1996b) that the domain of ethnographic method is where ethnomusicologists have most successfully and creatively occupied a disciplinary space midway between anthropology and musical scholarship. One is tempted to dub this a true "anthromusicology." But since terminology is already so problematic, I will draw instead on a distinction made over a decade ago by Anthony Seeger (1987). While historical musicologists are now beginning to participate actively in an "anthropology of music," bringing the "concepts, methods, and concerns of anthropology" to studies of music history, ethnomusicologists have in the meantime moved much more aggressively toward what Seeger has termed a "musical anthropology," exploring the way[s] "musi

Ethnomusicological Encounters with Music and Musicians: Essays in Honor of Robert Garfias. (review)

Notes, 2012

In 1962, only a dozen years after the term "ethnomusicology" first appeared in print in the writings of Jaap Kunst, Robert Garfias arrived at the University of Washington to found a program in ethnomusicology studies. Over the ensuing decades, the program at Washington influenced hundreds of students, musicians, and scholars, at the university and beyond. In this book, former students and colleagues of Garfias contribute essays on a variety of ethnomusicological topics in tribute to his influence on each of them and on the field as a whole.

Ethnomusicology as the Study of People Making Music ([1989] 2020)

Toward a Sound Ecology, 2020

Ethnomusicology is the study of people making music. People make sounds that are recognized as music, and people also make “music” into a cultural domain. This 1989 conference paper defined ethnomusicology and contrasted music as a contingent cultural category with earlier scientific definitions that essentialized music as an object. It was published for the first time in Musicology Annual (2015). Here it is as reprinted, with a new introduction, in my book Toward a Sound Ecology: New and Selected Essays (Indiana University Press, 2020). The book is available from IU Press, the usual online sources, and your favorite independent bookstore.