Explaining that musicality is an essential touchstone of the human experience, a concise introduction to the study of the nature of music, its community and its cultural values explains the diverse work of today's ethnomusicologists and how researchers apply anthropological and other social disciplines to studies of human and cultural behaviors. Original.
This volume brings together a group of analytical chapters exploring traditional genres and styles of world music, capturing a vibrant and expanding field of research. These contributors, drawn from the forefront of researchers in world music analysis, seek to break down barriers and build bridges between scholarly disciplines, musical repertoires, and cultural traditions. Covering a wide range of genres, styles, and performers, the chapters bring to bear a variety of methodologies, including indigenous theoretical perspectives, Western music theory, and interdisciplinary techniques rooted in the cognitive and computational sciences. With contributors addressing music traditions from Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas, this volume captures the many current directions in the analysis of world music, offering a state of the fi eld and demonstrating the expansion of possibilities created by this area of research.
Ethnomusicology: A Contemporary Reader is designed to supplement a textbook for an introductory course in ethnomusicology. It offers a cross section of the best new writing in the field from the last 15-20 years. Many instructors supplement textbook readings and listening assignments with scholarly articles that provide more in-depth information on geographic regions and topics and introduce issues that can facilitate class or small group discussion. These sources serve other purposes as well: they exemplify research technique and format and serve as models for the use of academic language, and collectively they can also illustrate the range of ethnographic method and analytical style in the discipline of ethnomusicology. Ethnomusicology: A Contemporary Reader serves as a basic introduction to the best writing in the field for students, professors, and music professionals. It is perfect for both introductory and upper level courses in world music.
A collection of essays which address and critically examine issues in contemporary ethnomusicology. It explores ethnomusicology's shifting disciplinary relationships and plots a range of potential developments for its future
Historical ethnomusicology is increasingly acknowledged as a significant emerging subfield of ethnomusicology due to the fact that historical research requires a different set of theories and methods than studies of contemporary practices and many historiographic techniques are rapidly transforming as a result of new technologies. In 2005, Bruno Nettl observed that “the term ‘historical ethnomusicology’ has begun to appear in programs of conferences and in publications” (Nettl 2005, 274), and as recently as 2012 scholars similarly noted “an increasing concern with the writing of musical histories in ethnomusicology” (Ruskin and Rice 2012, 318). Relevant positions recently advanced by other authors include that historical musicologists are “all ethnomusicologists now” and that “all ethnomusicology is historical” (Stobart, 2008), yet we sense that such arguments—while useful, and theoretically correct—may ultimately distract from careful consideration of the kinds of contemporary theories and rigorous methods uniquely suited to historical inquiry in the field of music. In Theory and Method in Historical Ethnomusicology, editors Jonathan McCollum and David Hebert, along with contributors Judah Cohen, Chris Goertzen, Keith Howard, Ann Lucas, Daniel Neuman, and Diane Thram systematically demonstrate various ways that new approaches to historiography––and the related application of new technologies––impact the work of ethnomusicologists who seek to meaningfully represent music traditions across barriers of both time and space. Contributors specializing in historical musics of Armenia, Iran, India, Japan, southern Africa, American Jews, and southern fiddling traditions of the United States describe the opening of new theoretical approaches and methodologies for research on global music history. In the Foreword, Keith Howard offers his perspective on historical ethnomusicology and the importance of reconsidering theories and methods applicable to this field for the enhancement of musical understandings in the present and future.
This study of Polish folk music is especially enlightening as it reveals both the history and practice of a musical tradition and offers an illuminating view of a culture and its social activities. Within her study, Anna Czekanowska analyses the vocal and instrumental traditions of Polish folk music, tracing the background history, the influences of geography and politics, and the practice, often within contemporary society, of such social events as the harvest, the solstice and weddings. The function of folk culture within contemporary life, for both Polish and non-Polish inhabitants of the country, is also examined. Professor Czekanowska also discusses the birth of Polish ethno- musicology as a discipline and details some methodological aspects for research. This study contributes to a greater understanding and appreciation of Polish music and, in a wider aspect, of Slavonic culture. The book contains numerous illustrations of instruments and cultural events, music examples, maps, a discography and bibliography.
'Performing Ethnomusicology' is the first book to deal exclusively with creating, teaching, & contextualizing academic world music performing ensembles. 16 essays discuss the problems of public performance & the pragmatics of pedagogy & learning processes.
Designed as a tribute to world-renowned ethnomusicologist Bruno Nettl, this volume explores the ways in which ethnomusicologists are contributing to the larger task of investigating music history. The fifteen contributors explore topics ranging from meetings with the Suyá Indians of Brazil to the German-speaking Jewish community of Israel; from Indian music in Felicity, Trinidad, to Ravi Shankar's role as cultural mediator. "This book is unique not only for its approach but also for the scope of its content. . . . It is definitely a must for libraries of research centers and institutions with ethnomusicology programs." -- Choice
