Report on the 1964 Annual Meeting of the Society of Ethnomusicology

The paper which was greeted with most enthusiasm was Eric Werner’s, which questioned some of the fundamental precepts of our field. In general, it seemed to be the concensus of some of the participants that the last ten years have yielded a tremendous increase in quantity of research, but that the fundamental views of the researchers have not changed much

Une anthropologie de la musique classique occidentale

RésuméL’ethnomusicologie, autrefois exclusivement consacrée à l’étude des traditions musicales transmises oralement, a développé, au cours des deux dernières décennies, un intérêt croissant pour la musique artistique occidentale, en particulier dans ses manifestations contemporaines. Cet essai se focalise essentiellement sur les problèmes méthodologiques que soulève la présentation d’un panorama complet de cette culture musicale complexe, en l’abordant dans le contexte de l’histoire de l’ethnomusicologie et en proposant une étude de la vie musicale des Écoles de musique univer-sitaires (conservatoires) du Midwest américain. Les approches sont les suivantes: 1) la culture musicale en tant que mythe; 2) les «grands» compositeurs en tant que panthéon; 3) l’organisation sociale des enseignants et des étudiants; 4) le répertoire musical en tant que métaphore de la société et de ses interaction et organisation coutumières.AbstractThe field of ethnomusicology, once exclusively devoted to the study of orally transmitted musical traditions, has in the last two decades begun to approach the contemplation of the Western art music tradition, particularly in its contemporary manifestation. This essay is concerned principally with methodological problems of organizing a comprehensive panorama of this complex musical culture, seeing it in the context of the history of ethnomusicology and providing as a case study the musical life of university schools of music (conservatoires) in the Midwestern U.S.A. The approaches are 1) the study of musical culture as myth; 2) the interpretation of the "great" composers as a pantheon; 3) the social organization of teachers and students; and 4) a view of the musical repertory as a metaphor of a society with customary organization and interaction

Ethnomusicological evaluations with Bruno Nettl

Musicology, is a discipline, based on investigation of specific problems of music with the various methods. Its research topics over time reached a multi-disciplinary dimension, and so its sub-branches have appeared. While musicology is focused on music, ethnomusicology, the first sub-branch of musicology, is focused on culture and it examines music as an element of culture. Research subjects of musicology and its sub-branches is sometimes intertwined, and this situation leads to ambiguities between the methods and study subjects of the disciplines. Although some (ethno)musicologists in the international arena and in Turkey has examined on methods and evaluation of musical researches, but there is not a certain consensus on the issue. Therefore, this article is based on the semi-structured interview with Bruno Nettl, one of the first academical ethnomusicologists, for the evaluation of all these issues. So the eleven semi-structured questions on various musical culture and methods were asked Nettl and his answers and evaluations were organized and interpreted by me with the various documents. As a result, he evaluated warily the musicological questions in this study within the ethnomusicological context, and it is seen that he is not interested in inter-disciplinary studies. However, Nettl emphasized that any musical culture or musical study can be investigated by various methods. All of the information, given by Nettl and me, in this article shows the difference of methods, approaches and assessments between musicology, ethnomusicology and the other sub-branches.

Aux sources de la recherche américaine. 1950-2000

Bruno Nettl, grande figure de l’ethnomusicologie américaine, naît le 14 mars 1930 à Prague d’où il émigre avec ses parents pour les USA en 1939. Il fait ses études auprès de Willi Apel, George Herzog et Paul Nettl, son père, à l’université d’Indiana (Bloomington) où il soutient sa thèse en 1953 (American Indian Music North of Mexico : its Styles and Areas). De 1953 à 1964, il est maître de conférence, chargé de l’enseignement musical à la Wayne University (Detroit) où il devient bibliothécair..

A herança musical da escravidão

A escravidão colocou em contato povos de diferentes origens em situações radicalmente novas, em um contexto de violência e dominação extremas. Apesar disso, tais contatos, a despeito da brutalidade que os fundava e das profundas desigualdades então engendradas, resultaram também em processos de mistura e criação cultural que produziram, especialmente, novas formas de expressão musicais. Este artigo busca analisar, de uma perspectiva comparada, processos sociais de criação musical no contexto de sociedades escravagistas ou pós-escravagistas, especialmente o surgimento de novas formas musicas nos Estados Unidos e na África do Sul