Ethnomusicology
This organization's mission is "to promote research, study, and performance of music in all historical periods and cultural contexts" [1]. Founded in 1955, it is the professional associated with the intersections of ethnography and music.
What is the Society of Ethnomusicology?
FOOTNOTES
[1] “About SEM.”
The video sample linked below features the Muezzins of Aleppo calling Muslims to pray.
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eApyXlK0RA [play for 30 seconds]
Their performance uses this musical technique, stringing multiple pitches onto a static syllable.
What are melismas?
This ensemble, depicted in the video below, is often used in Arab music.
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7Sil-QxADQ [play for 15 seconds]
It is composed of the ‘Ud, Qanun, Riqq, and Nay instruments.
What is takht?
This musical work is performed in Southern Ghana. Used for education, this Akan handgame teaches children about the negative effects of alcohol.
What is Nsa Ni O?
This mode of cultural transmission relies on the use of the spoken voice rather than transcription. This mode is associated with the use of mnemonics and songs.
What is oral?
This concept encompasses every social use of music, ranging from musical performance and repertoire to its teaching and transmission. [2] This varies between different societies as they may use or even define music in different ways than we are accultured to.
What is music-culture?
FOOTNOTES
[2] Titon et al., Worlds of Music, 3.
Musical works in Ghana and other regions use this rhythmic procedure, outlining the fundamental rhythmic progression of the work. It is typically performed on a double iron bell.
What is a timeline?
This category of fruit is often used to create percussive instruments. With its hard shell, instruments such as the Axatse and Calabash use fruits from this category in their construction.
What is a gourd?
In the performance below, a Tibetan is playing the conch shell, which has religious significance to this religion.
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dGFEYtTdAs&t=7s [play for 15 seconds]
In this religion, the conch shell is thought to represent the eponymic god.
What is buddhism?
This term refers to the use of syllables for enunciation that do not represent actual words. Examples of this include "la-la-la" and the sollukattu syllable system in South India.
What are vocables?
This responsibility is implicated when conducting ethnographic work. As someone who is attempting to capture not of their own, they must take this responsibility seriously, being diligent about obtaining consent and portraying the captured culture in an appropriate light.
The SEM has adopted a Position Statement on this topic, cautioning ethnomusicologists on the social and legal implications of their work and advising that they conduct their research responsibly [3].
What is ethics?
FOOTNOTES
[3] “Position Statement on Ethics.”
This musical procedure contains two roles, one of which leads and the other repeats. This style is used in many musical styles and is used in the dance/drum work "Kitia Dza" of the Ewe culture.
What is call and response?
This musical classification system is a refinement of Mahillon's system, which is derived from the Indian classification system. This classification system focuses on the sounding mechanism as the means of categorization, and is most common system in use today.
What is the Hornbostel-Sachs classification system?
This type of musical work helps people undertake difficult or repetitive tasks, often associated with manual labor. It is often used to coordinate actions between a large group of workers.
What are work songs?
This system, used in India, structures music teaching. A student works directly with a master artist for years or decades and listens, watches, and imitates their performance.
What is guru(kula)?
This ethnographic method is used in ethnomusicology, anthropology, sociology, and other disciplines. To conduct this method, one must surveil an individual or group making music, and one need not be a member of their music-making.
What is participant observation?
This rhythmic timeline is commonly associated with Cuban music and Cubop. Contrasting with American jazz, it is asymmetrical, and it comes in two variants: son, and rumba. This timeline can be seen in works such as "Manteca" by the Gillespie Orchestra [5].
What is clave?
FOOTNOTES
[5] DeVeaux and Giddins, Jazz, 383–86.
In the Kpegisu drumming style, this drum is the lead drum. A single-headed drum, this drum is played with sticks, is used in the Ewe culture, and plays the Ʋugbe, or drum language.
What is kloboto?
The recording below represents a musical style of the Americas.
https://www.folkways.si.edu/albumdetails.aspx?itemid=1580&GLMU=1 [play for 15 seconds]
This musical style includes instruments such as the violin, viheula, and guitarrón [6].
What is mariachi?
FOOTNOTES
[6] Henriques, Mariachi (USA).
This model, presented by Campbell in Teaching Music Globally, is similar to the "Extended Facets Model" proposed by Barrett, McCoy, and Veblen. This model contains three aspects - musical beginnings, continuities, and meanings - that facilitate musical and cultural understanding [8].
What is the Cultural Prism Model?
FOOTNOTES
[8] Campbell, Teaching Music Globally, 218–19.
This 20th century composer is commonly known as one of the founders of ethnomusicology for his research into the Hungarian folk [4]. His works include his Romanian Folk Dances, his third Piano Concerto, and Hungarian Pictures, the latter of which was performed by the Crane Symphony Orchestra in March of 2023.
Who is Bela Bartok?
FOOTNOTES
[4] Appold, “Béla Bartók and the Importance of Folk Music.”
In North Indian music, this syllable is used to imitate the stroke of the tabla (a North Indian hand drum). This differs from the sollukattu, a syllable system used in South India to represent strokes on the mridangam (a South Indian hand drum).
What is bols?
This term is used in the context of the Hornbostel-Sachs classification when the human body is the sound source. This is more specific than the idiophone classification, which is used for instruments whose body vibrates.
What is corpophone?
This type of music claims to enjoy no extra-musical or programmatic meaning, including as a religious tool, commodity, representation of technology, or aesthetic source. Originating from Germany, music of this term claims to be merely music for the sake of music, or music-as-music in Campbell's lexicon [7].
What is absolute music?
FOOTNOTES
[7] Scruton, Absolute Music.
This process describes the fusing of musical cultures into a composite by means of exposure to a new culture. Through this process, musicians creates a style that is the fusion of the two styles, mixing instruments, musical techniques, and forms, among many diverse influences [9].
What is acculturation?
FOOTNOTES
[9] Campbell, Teaching Music Globally, 233–34.