The University Museum

ETHNOMUSICOLOGY

The search for answers to questions about a group's culture or society is carried out by researchers working within the field of ethnomusicology: ethno means nation, and musicology is the systematized study of the science, history, forms, and methods of music. Ethnomusicologists, as they are known, try to understand the forms and meanings of music from the point of view of the people who perform it.

To accomplish this, an ethnomusicologist uses the fundamental anthropological method of "participant observation": observing and participating in events in their hosts' daily lives. Within the last quarter century, ethnomusicologists - like anthropologists in general - have broadened the scope of their research to include not only non-Western music but also the everyday music of people who live right in our own backyards.

Barnard, Alan and Jonathan Spencer (eds.) 1996. Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Anthropology. London and New York: Routledge.
McKechnie, Jean L. (ed.) 1983. Webster's New Twentieth Century Dictionary of the English Language. 2nd edition. New York: Prentice Hall Press.
Shelemay, Kay Kaufman 2001. Soundscapes: Exploring Music in a Changing World. New York: W. W. Norton and Company.

<<< Back Continue >>>