Ethnomusicology
The study of music as human culture, in all its world traditions and social contexts.
Definition
The study of music in its cultural and social context, encompassing the world's musical traditions and the ethnographic methods used to investigate them.
Scope
Covers the study of music as a cultural and social phenomenon across the world's traditions: its theoretical concern with the relationship of music to culture, its characteristic fieldwork and transcription methods, surveys of major world-music traditions, and the classification of instruments (organology). Distinguished from Western music history by its global scope and ethnographic, anthropological orientation.
Sub-topics
Core questions
- What is the relationship between music and the culture that makes it?
- How do ethnomusicologists conduct fieldwork and transcribe what they hear?
- How can music of unfamiliar traditions be understood on its own terms?
- How are the world's diverse musical instruments classified?
- What are the ethics of studying and representing others' music?
Key theories
- Music as culture (the threefold model)
- Merriam argued that music should be studied not as isolated sound but as the product of human behavior shaped by concepts, proposing a model that links sound, behavior, and underlying conceptualization, reorienting the field from comparative analysis of tunes toward the anthropology of music-making.
History
The field grew out of late-nineteenth-century comparative musicology, which used early recordings to compare scales and tunes worldwide; after World War II it was renamed ethnomusicology and, under Merriam and others, embraced anthropological fieldwork and the study of music as culture rather than mere sound.
Debates
- Comparative analysis versus cultural contextualism
- The discipline has long balanced its older comparative impulse — analyzing and comparing musical sound across cultures — against an anthropological insistence that music can only be understood within its specific cultural context, shaping methods and aims.
Key figures
- Alan P. Merriam
- Bruno Nettl
- Mantle Hood
- Erich von Hornbostel
Related topics
Seminal works
- merriam1964
- nettl2015
- rice2014
Frequently asked questions
- How is ethnomusicology different from music history?
- Music history typically traces the Western art-music tradition through its works and composers; ethnomusicology studies music of any tradition as a living cultural practice, usually through fieldwork and an anthropological lens.
- Does ethnomusicology only study non-Western music?
- No. Although it grew up studying non-Western traditions, its methods apply equally to Western popular, folk, and even art music understood as cultural practice.