Traditional Music and Cultural Identity

Persistent Paradigm in the History of Ethnomusicology

Bibliographic Data

ID4000583
AuthorsPhilip V Bohlman (0000-0002-0216-4055)
Year1988
Volume20
Pages26
Publication date1988-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueYearbook for Traditional Music (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0740-1558 • E-ISSN: 2304-3857
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/768164
OpenAlexW2326591586
LanguageEN
Citations received9
References cited3

1. Reassessing the Intellectual History of Ethnomusicology As many of the articles in this volume of the Yearbook for Traditional Music celebrate the first forty years of the ICTM and the concerted, if indeed polyphonic, voice that that organization has provided the study of traditional music throughout the world, they evoke a mood of reflection and reexamination of the intellectual history of ethnomusicology. Reflection was abundantly evident as the ICTM paused in 1987 to call attention to its achievements with a grand commemoration in Berlin, itself taking stock of a 750-year history. But the reflective mood of the ICTM's fortieth year was not simply a matter of panegyrizing the past; rather, it seemed equally concerned with reexamining the present and future in light of that past, with contrasting the old and the new, with juxtaposing them and encouraging ethnomusicologists to welcome that which has more recently come to shape our understanding of music throughout the world. In this article I shall be taking the current mood of reflection as both a point of departure and of arrival; in other words, I shall be looking at the subject of that reflection-the intellectual history of the field-and speculating about some of its motivations, some of the reasons that the past has come to play such an important role in assessing the present. Indeed, this concern with the past has begun to distinguish current directions in the field and to inform our present discourse by forging new ideas and fresh concepts. Ethnomusicology's reflective mood, then, may well be signaling a new look at the future with its refined assessment of the past. Birthdays and anniversaries, such as the fortieth of the ICTM and the 750th of Berlin, usually cause the celebrants to reflect on both youth and more advanced age. During much of the past forty years, however, ethnomusicologists more commonly thought of theirs as a young field, and to some extent it is safe to say that many still do. Perhaps this results from a preference for using data we ourselves collect. Fieldwork, ethnography, transcription, and even classification often stress the individual decision and involve some exercise of personal control over the material presentation of someone else's music. Our constant concern for musical and cultural change also molds our historical thinking in special ways, ensuring that we not ignore the present and spurring us to speculate on the future. There are, of course, other reasons why many ethnomusicologists seem preoccupied with the present and nervous about their disciplinary past. Surely there were early ethnomusicological studies that resulted from orientalist abuses or that relied on forms of collection and analysis whose accuracy has to be questioned. Looking at any historical body of scholarship turns up studies that are wrong-headed, and partic

Aesthetics · Art · Epistemology · Ethnomusicology · Identity (music · Literature · Music history · Musical · Musicology · Sociology · Diverse Musicological Studies · Historical Studies of British Isles · Musicology and Musical Analysis · History · Philosophy

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