Towards the History of Ideas in Ethnomusicology: Theory and Methods between the Late 18th and the Early 20th Century

Abstract

The history of ethnomusicology is the history of ideas and concepts of why and how to deal with expressive practices in social formations which are usually located outside the researcher's primary cultural experience. Ideas in ethnomusicology (comparative musicology, anthropology of music, folk music research, folkloristics) are interlinked with other scholarly disciplines and academic fields. The history of the field is sometimes described as a shift from either a more philologically oriented study of "national" folk music or "armchair anthropology" to a modern anthropological concept expressed in context-oriented, sociological, and performer-centered research, as well as in urban ethnomusicology. However, a great deal of issues frequently associated with English-speaking mainstream ethnomusicology of the last five decades (the "ethnographic turn") appeared in the intellectual folk music discourses as early as the late 18 th and the 19 th century. In a similar way, the history of comparative musicology as a scholarly concept can be traced back at least to the Age of Enlightenment. This article traces the emergence and early history of motivations, theoretical paradigms and research methods by discussing the following key issues and conceptual oppositions: Comparative study of musical cultures; Fieldwork experience; Aesthetic appreciation vs. value-free textual analysis; Relativism of expressive cultures: "our" and "their" concepts (emic/etic issues); The paradigm of orality vs. Kunstlieder im Volksmunde; "Living antiquities" vs. the sociology of folklore; Cultural homogeneity vs. performercentered research; Studying songs vs. studying singing; Music in its cultural context-"uses and functions"; Standards of notation and documentation; Rural vs. urban research; 'Cultural purity' vs. intercultural exchange.

Comparative musicology: The science of the world’s music

“…In this chapter, I will summarize some of the key works, scholars, and debates, with an emphasis on those consistent themes that continue to be actively debated and which we will focus on in later chapters (e.g., evolution, universals). For further details and perspectives on this history, please refer to works such as (Godwin, 1992;Graf, 1974;Gruber & Födermayr, 2003;Kursell, 2018;Merriam, 1977Merriam, , 1982Morgenstern, 2018;Nettl, 2015;Nettl & Bohlman, 1991;Rehding, 2000;Schneider, 2006;Toner, 2007).…”

“…Comparative musicology has deep roots that could be traced at least as far back as the Ancient Greeks (Godwin, 1992;Morgenstern, 2018). However, the field first acquired its own name and identity during the 19 th century when musicology and psychology were forming as distinct academic fields and the concepts of evolution and science were new and exciting.…”

In Defence of the Term and Concept of Traditional Music

“…Considering the existing theories on the creative individual in tradition (Glassie, 1995;Quigley, 2012;Cashman et.al., 2011), it is not possible to equate the concept of tradition with an understanding of culture as something homogeneous. The long history of performer-centred research in folkloristics and ethnomusicology (Morgenstern, 2018 17f.) shows the opposite.…”