The Canon of Ethnomusicology: Is There One?

Author(s): Virginia Danielson

Source: Notes , Dec., 2007, Second Series, Vol. 64, No. 2 (Dec., 2007), pp. 223-231
Published by: Music Library Association

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/30163080

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 THE CANON OF ETHNOMUSICOLOGY:
IS THERE ONE?
BY VIRGINIA DANIELSON

At first glance, the study of ethnomusicology would seem to be anti-

canonical in its essence. As a field of study (if not as a discipline), it has
certainly challenged the notion that only selected repertories--most usu-
ally the historic "classical" musics of Europe, but also "classical" musics in
general--merit systematic and categorical inclusion in research and
teaching programs.
As programs in ethnomusicology have developed and the related mat-
ters of publication and curriculum become institutionalized, however, at
least in North America, patterns have emerged that might be viewed as
"canonical." As patterns indicative of intellectual history, if not "canoni-
cal" obstinacy, these would seem to merit recognition and possibly cri-
tique. In the following pages, I will attempt to discuss what the current
canon of ethnomusicology might be, how it has changed, what chal-
lenges the canon, and what appears to be the (essential, if you will)
"bedrock" of ethnomusicology.
To get at these issues, it is useful to separate our awareness of the myr-
iad musical cultures of the world from the discipline of ethnomusicology.
In the increasingly interdisciplinary world of the late twentieth and early
twenty-first centuries, we see historians adopting typically ethnomusico-
logical methodologies as ethnomusicologists add the techniques of his-
torical research to their projects in such a way as to extract the methods
from their subjects in very creative ways.' To the extent that ethnomusi-
cology as a discipline has a "canon," that canon is its engagement with

Virginia Danielson is the Richard F. French Librarian, Eda Kuhn Loeb Music Library, Harvard
University.
This paper was originally presented at the Music Library Association's annual meeting in Pittsburgh in
2007 as part of the panel entitled "Musical Canon (s) and American Library Collections" which was con-
ceived and moderated by Daniel Boomhower, editor-in-chief of the forthcoming fourth edition of A
Basic Music Library. As a participant in this endeavor, my perspective is that of a librarian in a large re-
search library who tries to keep up with "canons" or lack of them, and of a scholar in ethnomusicology
familiar with the history of the discipline and its tendencies. As such, my comments will be familiar to
many others of similar background and I confess right here a sense of "stating the obvious." However I
was encouraged by my colleague Liza Vick, the world-music editor of A Basic Music Library, who is herself
grappling with issues of selection and representation, who reminded me that the existence of a canon de-
pends on its being obvious, and with that in mind, I forge ahead. I am grateful to Liza, Daniel, my fellow
panelists, and also James P. Cassaro, editor of this journal, for encouraging me to think in "canonical"
terms, as the process has been very interesting.
I. A noteworthy example is the recent course, "Leonard Bernstein's Boston," co-taught in the Music
Department at Harvard by professors Carol Oja and Kay Kaufman Shelemay. Using a wide variety of

223

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224 NOTES, December 2007

social theory (perhaps most no

America). It proceeds from an
that is itself problematized but
ture a definition written in
". . that complex whole which
law, custom and any other c
member of society."2
Using various theoretical mod
ing of musical expression in
structures to other social inter
experienced and observed. Et
power relations in a society and
siders and outsiders to a comm
The table of contents for Rut
Ethnomusicology, provides a go
nomusicology (see fig. 1).3 Fo
takes up the characteristics of
that have gained currency in e
or another. (She presents them
beginning in the late nineteen
the beginning of the Wester
taught in Europe and North A
At an entry level, Kay Kaufma
manifests "canonical" theory.4
Shelemay invites beginners to
stitutes social experience in fam
to Bangkok. She draws attent
that relate music to society: m
and social identity (see fig. 2).
sues of the twenty-first-centur

historical and ethnomusicological technique

Leonard Bernstein's early life and career in
sented as a panel at the annual meeting of th
ing in Pittsburgh in 2007, to an audience k
in a special edition of the Journal of the Socie
be available in the fall of 2007 from the Loe
#loebmusic [accessed 22 August 2007]).
2. Edward Burnett Tylor, Primitive Culture:
Religion, Art, and Custom, 2 vols. (London: J
Further discussions of musical "culture" by p
Bruno Nettl, The Study of Ethnomusicology:
Press, 2005).
3. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentic
4. Kay Kaufman Shelemay, Soundscapes: Expl
Norton, 2006; 1st ed., 2001).

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The Canon of Ethnomusicology: Is There One? 225

Figures iv
Plates vi
Preface viii
1 Inquiry in Ethnomusicology 1
2 Cultural Evolutionism and Diffusionism
Musicology 31
3 Structural-Functi
4 Linguistic Approaches in Ethnomusicology 79
5 Paradigmatic Structuralism in Ethnomusicology 126
6 Marxist Explanations in Ethnomusicology 139
7 Literary and Dramaturgical Theories in Ethnomusicol
8 Cognition and Communication Theory in Ethnomusico
9 Performance Theory in Ethnomusicology 204
10 Gender, Ethnicity, and Identity Issues in Ethnomusicological
Theory 221
11 Phenomenology and Experimental Ethnomusicology 252
12 Historical Research in Ethnomusicology 274
13 Postmodern, Postcolonial, and Global Issues in
Ethnomusicology 305
14 Convergence and Divergence in Theory 349
References 359

Fig. 1. Draft table of

to observe and a
own communities.

Seen over the approximate 150 years of its existence as a field of in

quiry, ethnomusicological work appears as part of what might be call
the political economy of scholarship in Europe and North Amer
home to the dominant world powers during this period. In her compi
tion of reprinted articles, Ethnomusicological Theory and Method, Ka
Shelemay provides a substantial sampling of ethnomusicological writi
between 1910 and 1987 that exemplify this point.5 For the purposes o
the immediate illustration of the rather sweeping overview below, I ad
few titles of my own.
One sees in early work a focus on musical systems and questions rela
to the origins of music and various musical styles--a sort of Darwinia
view of music that incorporated the possibility of "preservation" of sty

5. Ethnomusicological Theory and Method, ed. Kay Kaufman Shelemay, Garland Library of Readin
Ethnomusicology, 2 (New York: Garland, 1990).

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 226 NOTES, December 2007

I. Listening to Music
Sound: The Materials of Music

Setting: The Study of Local Musics

Significance: Music's Meaning in Everyday Life
II. Transmitting Music
Music and Migration
Music and Memory
Music, Mobility, and the Global Marketplace
III. Understanding Music
Music and Dance
Music and Ritual
Music and Politics

Music and Identity

Fig. 2. Abbreviated table of contents from the 2d edition of Kay Kaufman Shelemay's
Soundscapes

presumed to be historically "early" on the "periphery" of the moder

European world.6 The more dismal aspects of nineteenth-century indus
trialism seem to have fostered an idealization of the "folk," an urgency t
quickly "preserve" rapidly disappearing cultural artifacts, and attempts a
Marxist analyses of cultural production. Certainly ballad scholarship and
the field of Anglo-American folksong research of Samuel Preston
Bayard, Bela BartOk, and Zoltan Kodaly, among many others, exemplify
this movement, yielding a rich field of research in these repertorie
Charles Seeger's "Versions and Variants of 'Barbara Allen' " and Albert
Lord's Singer of Tales influenced later scholarship in many disciplines en
gaged with musical and literary composition, improvisatory and the cr
ative process.? Among ethnomusicologists who have engaged Marxism,
one would note Regula Burkhardt Qureshi, Peter Manuel, and K. A
Gourlay.
Ethnomusicology participated in the nineteenth- and twentieth-
century preoccupations with the exotic, beyond the "folk" of their home

6. Erich von Hornbostel, "Melodie and Skala," Jahrbuch der Musikbibliothek Peters 19 (1912): 11-13; Curt
Sachs, The Rise of Music in the Ancient World, East and West (New York: W. W. Norton, 1943); Bence
Szabolcsi, A History of Melody, trans. of the 1950 Hungarian original by Cynthia Jolly and Sara Karig
(London: Barrie and Rockiff, 1965).
7. Charles Seeger, "Versions and Variants of 'Barbara Allen' as Sung in Traditional Singing Styles in
the United States, and Recorded by Field Collectors Who Have Deposited Their Discs and Tapes in the
Archive of American Folk Song in the Library of Congress," Selected Reports of the Institute of Ethno-
musicology, University of California, Los Angeles 1, no. 1 (1966): 120-67, being notes for the recording of the
same title, Folk Music of the United States, Library of Congress Recording Laboratory AFS L54 (1964),
LP; Albert Bates Lord, The Singer of Tales, Harvard Studies in Comparative Literature, 24 (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1960; 2d ed., 2000).

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The Canon of Ethnomusicology: Is There One? 227

countries, into regions of the world previously unknown to Eur

Cast against the backdrop of industrialism and capitalism, the s
musical domains of Africa, Asia, and parts of South America pr
new, alternative musical and social food for Euro-American thoug
to the present day, the workings of musical performance a
forms to produce meanings indicative of devotion, gender, iden
community structuration form grist of the ethnomusicological m
Obviously, however, ethnomusicological research depends on m
communities and repertories as well as theories. Some regions an
sics have garnered more attention than others over the years, su
another kind of canon. Following not only the colonial path
more durable issues that ethnomusicological research churn
comparative musical systems, music in the structures of diverse
relationships between music and language, among numerous
certain repertories have attracted more scholarly attention than
over time. Ethnomusicological research has followed the tr
European explorers and occupiers as they opened doors for cultu
searchers who quickly entered new domains. Jaap Kunst's extensi
in the Dutch provinces provides one example as does the early w
the Middle East of Robert Lachmann, Abraham Zvi Idelsohn, and
Heinrich Husmann. Alexis Chottin and Prosper Ricard published work
under the aegis of the French administration's Service des arts indigenes
in Morocco.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, one notes the w
of "tune" and folksong scholars, and the related active interest in Nati
American music. India, the gamelan of Southeast Asia, and the Mid
East opened windows on non-Western classical and courtly traditions
fostered the study of melodic systems and theory. Africa presented mo
of integrated performance bringing dance, song, instrumental perfo
mance, and costume into the service of communal events. Further, "t
gamelan," elegant and particularistic ensembles of Southeast Asi

8. For instance: Steven Feld, Sound and Sentiment: Birds, Weeping, Poetics, and Song in Kaluli Expres
Publications of the American Folklore Society, n.s., 5 (Philadephia: University of Pennsylvania Pr
1982); and Anthony Seeger, Why Suyci Sing: A Musical Anthropology of an Amazonian People, Cambrid
Studies in Ethnomusicology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987). Fascination with the
otic" took other forms in musical scholarship and composition as well, for instance "alla turca" in
eighteenth century and the Western fascination with the results of the China trade; but these wer
directly involved in the development of ethnomusicology as a field of study.
9. For instance: Regula Burkhardt Qureshi-,,S'ufi Music of India and Pakistan: Sound, Context,
Meaning in Qawwali (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986); Jane C. Sugar
Engendering Song: Singing and Subjectivity at Prespa Albanian Weddings, Chicago Studies in Ethnomusic
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997); Mark Slobin, Subcultural Sounds: Micromusics of the
(Hannover, NH: Wesleyan University Press; University Press of New England, 1993); and Vir
Danielson, "The Voice of Egypt": Umm Kulthiim, Arabic Song and Egyptian Society in the Twentieth Cen
Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997).

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228 NOTES, December 2007

courts, became a mainstay fo

practice, and has been cent
United States. Coming to th
nance and trade, from its ap
nineteenth century to the pr
fascination. For a period of tim
ume of repertories of the Sou
The current "canon," then,
sub-Saharan Africa, "gamela
and North Africa, with East A
editions of Jeff Todd Titon's
views of the emerging ethno
Turning the ethnomusicolog
in ethnomusicology signale
study of the New England Co
town institutions of various s
nities of peoples studied by
nored their own cultures, b
ethnomusicology as a model o
lated issues appears in J. Law
Ethnomusicology?"12 Witzleb
ories and methods of "indige
important constituents of the
Recently, a group of essays
in Ethnomusicology's fiftieth
cludes a critique related to W
nifies more recent and emer
the backdrop of twentieth-cen
tive on late-twentieth-century

As I made my way through th

Hornbostel, Charles Seeger,
Hood, and Gerard Behague, am
largely male middle-class privi
its theoretical merits, ethnomu
I came to see as disturbingly
twentieth-century Western colo

10. Jeff Todd Titon, Worlds of Music: An

Schirmer Books, 1984; 4th ed., Belmont,
11. Henry Kingsbury, Music, Talent, and
Temple University Press, 1988); Bruno Nettl
of Music, Music in American Life (Urbana:
12. J. Lawrence Witzleben, "Whose Ethn
Asian Music," Ethnomusicology 41, no. 2 (Sp

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The Canon of Ethnomusicology: Is There One? 229

1st Edition

1. The Music-Culture as a World of Music, by Mark Slobin and Jeff

Todd Titon
2. North America/Native America, by David P. McAllester
3. Africa/Ghana, by James T. Koetting
4. North America/Black America, by Jeff Todd Titon
5. Europe/Peasant Music-Cultures of Eastern Europe,
by Mark Slobin

7. South India/Instrument Building and Performance,

by David B. Reck
8. Discovering and Documenting a World of Music, by David B.
Reck, Mark Slobin, and Jeff Todd Titon
4th Edition

1. The Music-Culture as a World of Music, by Jeff Todd Titon and

Mark Slobin

2. North America/Native America, by David P. McAllester

3. Africa/Ewe, Mande, Dagbamba, Shona, BaAka, by David Locke
4. North America/Black America, by Jeff Todd Titon

6. India/South India, by David B. Reck

5. Bosnia and Central/Southeastern Europe: Music and Musicians
in Transition, by Mark Slobin
6. India/South India, by David B.
7. Asia/Indonesia, by R. Anderson Sutton
8. East Asia/Japan, by Linda Fujie
9. Latin America/Ecuador, by John M. Schechter
10. Discovering and Documenting a World of Music, by Jeff Todd
Titon, David B. Reck, and Mark Slobin

Fig. 3. Abbreviated tables of contents from the 1st and 4th editions of Jeff Todd Titon's
Worlds of Music

there to understand why so much research focused on the traditional musics

of Africa, India, Indonesia, and non-industrialized or newly industrializing
areas both in and beyond the West? How else might I have understood why
researchers wishing to study in those areas were more likely to receive fund-
ing and have their work viewed as legitimate? Even more, as I learned more
about the importance some programs placed on participation in "world
music" ensembles, but rarely, say, rock bands or string quartets, I could not
shake the impression that some of my colleagues were invested in and peda-
gogically reproducing an intellectualized form of cultural tourism, one that
championed "outsider" research and self-renewal through the Other."

13. Travis Jackson, "Rearticulating Ethnomusicology: Privilege, Ambivalence, and Twelve Years in
SEM," Ethnomusicology 50, no. 2 (Spring/Summer 2006): 281-82.

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 230 NOTES, December 2007

Jackson's and Witzleben's obse

that of a growing number of ot
musicological canon overall,
diversified perspectives of loca
classical, and world-wide popula
jects of ethnomusicological stud
Seen from this broadening per
fered by Enlightenment phil
American thought and inqui
general form "canons" that a
Enlightenment notions of indiv
are far from absolute values in
ues of broad social structures su
as religious devotion that are cr
and Asia, for example. The ru
their use in discussions of gl
problematic. As Simon During
tionality and scientific objectiv
are no longer acceptable in lar
cultural differences."" My own
East have thrown this issue into bold relief.
Amidst this shifting canon, what is bedrock? And, turning to the ad-
mirable enterprise of A Basic Music Library (BML), how does one collect
resources in support of such a canon? First, one abandons old notions of
"bibliographic control" and "comprehensive collecting." One acknowl-
edges that perfection is unattainable and humility requisite. A related
fact that must be acknowledged is that, owing to patterns of global distri-
bution or lack thereof, what we can represent on our shelves as music
from Sudan, for example, may or may not resemble what contemporary
Sudanese actually listen to. These are times when purchasing recordings
from a local specialized grocery store is not a bad idea, assuming one can
develop some idea of what one is seeking.
At the same time, one must focus on recordings--field and commercial--
with copious ancillary documentation. Video recordings that bring to-
gether sound, symbol, and action should be at the forefront of collecting
efforts, with sound recordings following closely behind. As cumbersome
as they are for libraries to manage, multimedia documents with copious
text, photographs, audio and video media provide the sort of view ethno-
musicological study requires. Books with media and media with books

14. Quoted in Witzleben, 236.

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The Canon of Ethnomusicology: Is There One? 231

are key sorts of resources. Companies such as OCORA

Auvidis, and Smithsonian Folkways have been mainstays
ucts, as have more specialized agencies such as Canyo
L'institut du Monde Arabe. Filmmakers Library, Films fo
ties and Sciences, and Documentary Educational Resou
duced relatively reliable video. Although this probably w
for good reason, it would be a service for BML to list book
ings in ethnomusicology as well as recordings alone to ena
view an ethnomusicological "canon" wants. Heavily annot
will help address the canon of "issues" in ethnomusicolog
the information about the music that they include. As a
ple, ethnomusicology's bedrock remains primary source d
do most other disciplines. The issue becomes understandi
tutes a primary source in the context.
What BML must do is to jump-start us with names, genr
and experts from whence we can move into a collecting
in for the long or short term with other resources: huma
recorded. The BML is a social document as much as any o
ber and kind of citations must reflect research and pr
know these now, as unbalanced and quirky as that may be

FIGURE 2, C.

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