Ethnomusicology

No, it doesnt mean the study of ethnic music

Ethnomusicology
Ethnography + Musicology writing about people Social Anthropology Musicking: making, receiving, talking about, behaving with music.

 How music means what meanings, in the broadest sense, do people draw from music, and what in the music makes that drawing possible.

Clichs of difference
Synchronic (occurring at one point in time) vs diachronic (evolving through time) The ethnographic present
the Jogi performer draws upon a range of sources . . .

Typical rather than exceptional Styles rather than great works

Dum Alu
900gms Aloo (Potatoes) 3 & 3/4th cups water Salt To Taste Ghee or oil for deep-frying 1 cup ghee 1 large Onion (finely chopped) 4 tbsp tomato puree 140 ml curd 4 tbsp hot water 1 green pepper (seeds removed and sliced) 1tsp garam masala powder Spices 4 cloves 4 bay leaves 6 black peppercorns 4 green cardamoms 1 brown cardamom 1piece cinnamon stick Paste 1 large onion (chopped) 12 cloves garlic 2 tbsp ginger 6 black peppercorns 1 tsp poppy seeds 1 tbsp coriander seeds 1 tsp cumin seeds 2 dry red chillies 1 tsp turmeric powder A pinch of ground mace A pinch of ground nutmeg Peel and dice the potatoes into 2cm cubes. Soak in water for about 20 minutes. While the potatoes are soaking, prepare the dry paste in a mixi.

The Score (what it does tell us)

Structure of Tin Pan Alley song Literal relationship of words to music. A set of instructions which, if followed competently, using the appropriate tools, will result in a collection of sounds which a listener may recognise or accept as a particular piece of music.

Other (more) interesting things

Interpretation The score as biography Complexities of text-music interactions The score, interpretation, biography Why were so many Tin Pan Alley songs Why we (dis)like what we (dis)like How we draw meanings from it

Aside: its a jazz chart

All music cultures have some form of fixed material All music cultures acknowledge some departure from what is fixed All music cultures have conventions or rules about how you can depart and how far you can go This applies to both performance practice and the creation of new material

Ever heard something totally unfamiliar, or something you really didnt like?
Japanoise Incapacitants Pansori Korea Park Dong Jin

3 options
Compare with what you know Run screaming No-one deliberately creates bad music: get working

Two approaches
The hot topic

The ethnography

bhangra
Punjab (India and Pakistan) Developed in UK youth Migration Minority Mass media Identity: Assigned, Elective, Public, Private

Identity
Musician as Identity
Specialisation Professionalisation Selection (Peru) Relations to others

Identity
Articulated (bhangra examples above) Why cant I have my self-expression back? Killing me softly Roberta Flack Identity as things shared

Identity projected
What does it mean for 19 year olds of (insert qualifiers if you think necessary) Australian background to learn to play music written by a provincial German for a Russian aristocrat living in Vienna 200 years ago? People could think you rather odd?

Music as work
Creates identity
Election

Enculturates to sounds used to project identity Creates group bonds of varied durability
Anthems dangerous neo-tribal

Identity/difference
Gender Musics and roles within music
Negotiation 055 Alim Qasimov and Fergana Qasimova Azerbaijan muqam falsetto HawaiI Stan Kaina

Gender roles projected in music Gender roles reinforced by music

Guaguanco (Cuba)
Gender relations Processes of music making Cultural survival Aberikula en la Habana

Sousa march
Music shaping social behaviour Music shaping values Music as outlet.
Country and Western, Roger Wallace

Music and war Music as resistance

flamenco cante jondo La Caita

Taita initiation (Kenya)

Rites spirituality Can be thought of very broadly How music reinforces ritual experience Defining insiders and outsiders musical components of a total sound Mimesis

Where is ethnomusicology
Somewhere else (other) Speaking another language Usually poor Frequently hot

No, its . . . Anywhere.

Music is NOT a universal language Variety of sounds and meanings What accounts for this? It is not race Culture (enculturation) Circumstance Habitus between circumstance and action

Getting it wrong
European music is corrupt, degenerate. And the most corrupt music of all is that of Bach. And why? Because he muddles the practice of music with those artificial and unacceptable elements of harmony and polyphony, disguising melody in a jumble of overlapping sounds. He enslaves melody to the confines of the most banal meters, and confuses all with that clamour known as orchestration. (A famous Indian musician, subsequently elaborated in his defence by several Indian friends). Right observations, wrong evaluations

Relativism
Sounds are only meaningful and assessable relative to their interpreter A primary interpreter is the group that makes the sound in the first place. There is no absolute standard of beauty, correctness, expressivity etc Emic and etic views

Time
Music ordering time Accelerating or Slowing the experience of time. dhrupad alap: Dagar Brothers

Foregrounded time

Attenuated time (inaudible time) honkyoku shakuhachi Riley Lee

Flexibility, steadiness Miles Davis, Flamenco Sketches

Co-ordination: Bartok #4/5 Takacs Quartet

 Gagaku Japan - Etenraku

Periodicity (metre)
Pulse alone taqsim (from 355) Cycle Length Symmetry Ivo Papasov ratchenitsa Regularity Reich Tehillim How is it marked Polymetric Zimbabwe mbira (modernised): Thomas Mapfumo

culture
What you find in museums and concert halls. So called high culture That complex whole which includes knowledge, beliefs, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society (E.B. Tylor).

culture
culture is defined as the shared patterns of behaviours and interactions, cognitive constructs, and affective understanding that are learned through a process of socialization. These shared patterns identify the members of a culture group while also distinguishing those of another group. [Centre for Advanced Research in Language Acquisition, University of Minnesota. www.carla.umn.edu/culture/definitions.html]

Culture
Most social scientists today view culture as consisting primarily of the symbolic, ideational, and intangible aspects of human societies. The essence of a culture is not its artifacts, tools, or other tangible cultural elements but how the members of the group interpret, use, and perceive them. It is the values, symbols, interpretations, and perspectives that distinguish one people from another in modernized societies; it is not material objects and other tangible aspects of human societies. People within a culture usually interpret the meaning of symbols, artifacts, and behaviors in the same or in similar ways. [Banks, J.A., Banks, & McGee, C. A. (1989). Multicultural education. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon].

Why music as culture

Apart from the fact this is a music course Deeply felt - powerful Variety of meanings Changeability of meaning Public nature of music Private nature of meaning Almost everywhere

Between circumstance and culture

Habitus an acquired system of generative schemes predispositions, learning, enculturated reflexes, flexibly used to provide ongoing responses to routine or unusual circumstances Actions that are reasonable without being the product of a reasoned design Compatible with and pre-adapted to the demands of the objective conditions of their practice.

music or non-music
a: the science or art of ordering tones or sounds in succession, in combination, and in temporal relationships to produce a composition having unity and continuity b: vocal, instrumental, or mechanical sounds having rhythm, melody, or harmony (Webster)

the art of combining vocal or instrumental sounds in a pleasing way (Oxford)

a pattern of sounds made by musical instruments, singing or computers, or a combination of these, intended to give pleasure to people listening to it (Cambridge)

Problems?
consisting of Isolates sound as part of complex Qualitative judgments
Cant music be irritating? Who is pleased?

Differentiation from other sound-communications

Music is . . .
Sound Organised Sound Humanly Organised sound

Intended as music by the creator or listener

 Speech and song: sprechstimme, auctioneers, Life Without Buildings, Rex Harrison, closing, silbo Cultural limitations adan, ngathi, Inuit throat games
musiqi, khavandan

Birds and whales? Why not crows and dogs? Nils Valkeapaa John Cage