ETHNOMUSICOLOGY FROM A CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE 1

Ethnomusicology from a Cultural Perspective

1. Introduction

As the earliest discipline produced in Europe, ethnomusicology has realized its own

discipline value in the historical evolution process from the beginning, emergence,

development and expansion. First of all, the research attribute of the "anthropological school"

of ethnomusicology emphasizes taking music as a culture, and puts it in a specific social,

historical, political and other contexts. According to Alamriam (Alan P.Merriam), scholars

pay more attention to the role of music in culture and its function in the wider social and

cultural systems of mankind. After the 1950s, the "American School" founded by Merriam

and others began to add a new perspective on the "artistic law" of music, namely the cultural

perspective of music, and created the word "Ethnomusicology" (Zhang, 2022). According to

the article "The Music Ethnography of Understanding", the word ethnomology contains a

very wide range of content, both the discussion of the law of music art and the analysis of the

law of music behavior. Before the 1980s, the research of Chinese traditional music mainly

discussed the characteristics of music form, whose purpose was to understand the

characteristics and laws of Chinese traditional music and serve for the creation. After the

1980s, with the introduction and strengthening of the concept of "ethnomusicology", Chinese

traditional music research has extended another perspective on the basis of maintaining the

analysis of music form, that is, to study music as a cultural phenomenon, and its research

focus is not only music form, but also added music behavior. With the development of The

Times and science and technology, China's ethnomusicology has also made great progress. It

can be said that at present, China's ethnomusicology research is at least in line with the world

in terms of research concepts and discipline concepts.

2. Research Method

From the perspective of the research paradigm, "there are two common methods in
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the study of folk music: anthropology and musicology" (Lu, 2022). Ethnomusicologists use

anthropological methods to study music, usually to understand people and culture. Music as a

cultural symbol is created by people, and gives music a unique cultural symbolic meaning.

Because the subject of construction, listening, experience, and consumption of music are all

people. At the same time, the formation of music form structure and style is directly related to

the economic, social, political, historical and other factors constructed by people.

Ethnomusicology should not only study the artistic form and style characteristics of music,

but also pay more attention to the deep exploration of the symbolic function and meaning of

music endowed by people. Represented by the famous American anthropologist Merriam, he

put forward the view of "music is also culture", which is that people began to pay attention to

the connotation behind folk music, and played a strong role in promoting the study of

ethnomusicology. His research method of —— behavior is mainly through the observation

and analysis of music matters, which divides ethnomusicology into three parts: audio,

performance subject behavior and music concept, which improves the scientificity, rationality

and effectiveness of ethnomusicology research. This research method can not only

independently analyze the three parts, but also take the three parts as a unified whole, analyze

the connection between the three parts, and make the study of ethnomusicology more deeply

(Zhao, 2020).

The second is that people who use musicology methods want to understand music by

studying people and culture, represented by the American ethnomusicologist Timothy Rice,

which has become a classic model of ethnomusicology research. It is the two-way and three-

dimensional development of the "simple mode" of Mediam. Through the specific examples of

the Bulgarian music research to explain the "metaphor of music", so as to explain the

application and significance of the model in its specific research. As the world's cultural

landscape became more complicated and the differences of individual experiences grew, Rice
ETHNOMUSICOLOGY FROM A CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE 3

revised the pattern into a "three-dimensional space of music experience" to help people

understand the creation of music at this stage. Rice believes that "emphasizing individuals

may be the latest, but weakest area of the development of ethnomusicology." The study of

individual and individual composers is firmly established in historical musicology, and until

recently in ethnomusicology. Rice's ethnomusicology method is to summarize the historical

and social dimensions by using the observation of musical behavior. This research method

can effectively compensate for the shortcomings of Meriam ethnomusicology research

method, making the study of ethnomusicology not only appear from a macro perspective but

also explore the details. It improves the comprehensiveness of ethnomusicology research (He

& Guo, 2018). Although these two ethnomusicology research methods have their own

characteristics, they are both classical research methods, which provide support and

guarantee for the research of ethnomusicology in China. Whatever the kind of research

tendency, it brings ethnomusicology a unique perspective of music on culture or culture on

musicology.

3. Research Objects and Main Ideas

Ethnomusicology is mainly conducted with folk music as the main research object,

which is a branch discipline of musicology, which aims to deepen the understanding of music

from the perspective of ethnology. Contemporary musicethnology was founded in the mid-

20th century by the musician Kongst. He was more practical than his earlier comparative

musicology, instead of studying recordings but conducting fieldwork, focusing on some kind

of music in a single cultural circle, usually for "non-Western" music, laying the foundation

for musical anthropology. As one of the important areas for the development of music

ethnology in the United States, many scholars have studied this issue. "Double musical

ability" began to develop during this period, and was put forward by Stephen Hood, a famous

music composer and theorist.

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Hood's "double musical ability" is considered academic as another academic theme in

contemporary western folk music. Different from the study of traditional music culture, Hu

De believes that the study of folk music is to study all the music, not only the music itself but

also the cultural context around the music. Only by understanding the music and playing and

singing the music at the same time can we appreciate the art of music (Zhou & Shao, 2021).

Therefore, in Hood's view, the ethnomusicologists should learn in addition to their own folk

music, especially the folk music and the traditional music.

Ethnic musicology has two main ideas. One is that the study and study of folk and

folk music requires the field investigation and study of "music masters" and "inheritors".

According to the introduction of the article "local knowledge acts on the field investigation of

ethnomusicology", the field investigation is the lifeline of ethnomusicology research. In the

study of ethnomusicology, any one achievement, especially for the vivid music and

humanities events living in today's society, has a cornerstone role. The so-called field

investigation is to understand, get familiar with and master the local knowledge such as the

relevant local documents, physical objects, information providers and even the local legends,

proverbs and other oral communication materials of the selected respondents.

The second is that the research and study of folk and folk music requires field

research and cultural immersion, and the cultural life is chronicled by ethnomusicologists.

Zhang Boyu, professor of musicology department of Central Conservatory of Music, has

been engaged in the teaching and research of ethusicology for a long time, pursuing the

construction of unique cognitive ways and methods of music matters. He selected the

research papers on ethnomusology written in recent years into two anthologies, "Theory" and

"practice", among which "—— Practice of Thoughts on Ethnomusology inside and outside

the Sound" was published by the Central Conservatory of Music Press last year. Ellen

Merriam proposes to understand music as a culture, and strongly positions the importance of
ETHNOMUSICOLOGY FROM A CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE 5

anthropological approaches to the —— Understanding of music is to focus on the sounds,

concepts, and people's behavior in that culture. The author Qi (2008) wrote that the

ethnographic writers need to further understand their own position in the ethnography, such

as the researchers' epistemological position, the relationship with the studied culture and the

studied individuals, and the relationship with their own culture.

4. Understanding of Ethnomusicology

In daily life, ethnomusicology is often wrongly understood to be studying only folk

music, folk music and traditional music (Zhu, 2020). In addition, music culture is the focus of

ethnomusicology and the need for ethnomusicologists to study in distant villages. However,

after the research and discussion of many scholars and the erosion of time, it is concluded

that ethnomusicologists do not need to go to distant villages for research, but can conduct

field research anywhere, or even on the Internet, not to go to very distant places. As Timothy

Rice and Wei Linlin studied the music and identity themes in ethnomusicology, based on a

review of various literature. The paper mainly focuses on the basic problems appearing in the

general literature, that is, the concept, source, type, generation and by who to define and

standardize the identification. Finally, through reflection, the role of music in the construction

and symbol of recognition is summarized (Rice & Wei, 2014) is summarized. Therefore, it is

not necessary to investigate in distant places to study ethnomusicology.

Ethnomusicologists can study any type of music, including Western or non-Western

music. Similarly, it is not to say that music culture is the focus of ethnomusicology, and

ethnomusicologists are not limited to the study of "culture", and can focus on many aspects of

music, such as music experience, music perception, music understanding, music aesthetic

experience, religious belief in music, music, power in music and other issues. Some scholars

point out that ethnomusicologists study a wide range of themes and musical practices around

the world. It is sometimes described as studying non-Western music or "world music" rather
ETHNOMUSICOLOGY FROM A CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE 6

than the musicology of Western European classical music. However, the field is more defined

by its research methods (i. e., ethnography, or immersive field trips in a particular culture)

than by its theme. Thus, the ethnomusicologists could study anything, from folk music to

mass-disseminated popular music, to musical practices related to the elite class.

Ethnomusicologists also do not need to learn traditional folk music. Ethnic musicians

can also make making music the "people" of their research focus. They can learn about

guitarists, street performers, and video game gamers. In other words, ethnomusicology should

not only pay attention to the analysis and description of musical forms, but also pay attention

to the comprehensive exploration of the deep structure of the differences in musical forms

and styles caused by the social, historical, political and other comprehensive contexts

constructed by human factors. As related scholars of folk music brief mentioned in, after the

1980s, with the change of the world pattern, ethnic musicology began to emphasize from the

political, economic, ideological, social, history, cultural concept of the music in the cultural

background, emphasizes the characteristics of all kinds of music itself, appeared some new

research viewpoint. For example, in urban ethnomusicology, music industry and mass media,

folk music is developing in an increasingly mature direction.

5. Conclusion

To sum up, ethnomusicology originally originated from foreign countries and studied

music as a cultural phenomenon. Ethnomusicologists usually use anthropological methods

and musicology methods to study music, the former is usually designed to understand people

and culture, and the latter wants to understand music by studying people and culture.

Therefore, in the process of studying ethnomusicology, it must be made clear that folk music

comes from life, but it is higher than life. Only from the perspective of the people, can we

better understand the meaning contained in folk music, and more fully understand the

aesthetic direction of the people at that time. Although the study of ethnomusicology is
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constantly changing, the research method of Merriam and Rice is still the classics, which

provides the direction and inspiration for the study of ethnomusicology in China. One of the

main ideas for the study of ethnomusicology is that ethnomusicologists need to conduct field

investigations. Field investigation is the most important experience of anthropology, and it is

the main basis for anthropologists to collect data and establish general rules. Theory must be

combined with practice in order to have greater development. The most important thing is

that we should clearly realize that ethnomusicology is not only confined to the study of folk

music, but also includes western music or non-western music. Its research topics and research

methods are also diverse, not only limited to the remote investigation, but also can conduct

field research on the Internet. The above is an introduction to ethnomusicology, but the study

of ethnomusicology is far more than that.

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Qi, K. (2008). Understanding and witnessing in experience: Concepts and methods of

ethnomusicological fieldwork. Music Research, (1), 35–42.

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