Ethnomusicology: Origins, Definitions and Key Figures

Ethnomusicology: Origins and Definitions

Ethnomusicology: Definition and Classic Approaches. Kunst.1 Term coined in 1950 by Jaap Kunst, who wrote books devoted to ethnomusicology. The first was Guido Adler in 1885, who proposed the bipartition of musicology into historical and systematic branches (harmony, aesthetics, pedagogy and didactic comparison of musicology, ethnological or comparative). Ethnomusicology in its first phase was a type of research method that we studied through work put into ethnomusicology. Musicologists shunned the study of oral traditions and culture in the Western world.

Defining Modern Ethnomusicology

Myers: part of musicology with emphasis on its students and the cultural context. Crivillé and G. Ethnological research and musicology. Pelinski: the field's principal aim is to investigate and understand how the people who make the music do so. Viana: the form of musical anthropology studies, such as popular songs, from primitive cultures and peoples. Today, the field is not defined by the type of music studied, but by the methods used to study it.

Constantin Brăiloiu

He differentiated between musicology and ethnology, rejecting all oral documentation in favor of the written. Musicology relied on oral sources. His contributions to ethnomusicology are of great value, thanks to his help and profound knowledge of the field.

M. Alan Merriam

From the 1960s to the 1980s, ethnomusicology was defined as the study of music in culture (1960), and later as the study of music as culture (1973). He also contributed methodological insights.

Musicology, Ethnomusicology and Folklore: Gaps and Discoveries

Ethnomusicology suffered from a lack of serious monographs on folk music and folklore, and subjects were often approached without touching on the broader population's interests. The enormous richness of musical traditions, music of the author, and the cultural environments of Frenk, Margit and Litter inspired popular studies. Folklore studies were absent, and ethnomusicology was neglected in Spain.

Figures such as Bartók and Pedrell were musicologists who complemented one another. Authors who simply styled traditions theoretically, and systematized the work, facilitated methodology and field studies (Bartók). In Spain this did not happen: there were only erudite musicologists without unified criteria for applying thematic, contextual or formal analysis to the songs collected by compilers.

M. Schneider: a great step forward was the creation of folk-music research in the institutional branch of Spanish musicology.

Beginnings of Folklore as a Discipline in Spain

Traditional studies of the 19th century, folklore, and popular wisdom were proposed by William J. Thoms in his 1846 article, introducing a new discipline that studied diverse aspects of traditional culture, though it had no clear disciplinary identity in classic academic circles.