Collaborative definitions of EM 2016

Descriptive or prescriptive?

Theory or method? Topic? Big? Small?

• How to categorize it?
  • A practice
  • A discourse
  • Research
  • A science
• What is it about? (topic)
  • Sound is central, but not limited to sound
  • Sound plus culture/society
  • Sound in culture/society
  • "humanly organized sound"
  • humanly intended sound
  • artistic sound
  • non-functional? aesthetic? non-referential humanly organized sound?
• Definitions of EM:
  • "The study of music in its cultural context" (SEM)
  • in relation to Musicology: EM includes cultural/social environment. How does it differ from "sociology of music"? (1) non-Western; (2) fieldwork.
  • "the study of non-western music"
• Who is an EMist?
  • interest in the background of the music, preservation of music and how it developed
  • often composers, esp. 20th century- looking for new sounds
  • often performers
  • historians interested to revive lost traditions: reconstruction
  • people interested to preserve national traditions - Europe, postcolonial nations - developing differently in different places (Ghana vs. India vs. Korea vs. Canada) - how to define the nation musically? Musical impact on society. Both a profession for ethnomusicologists (in the employ of the state) and an object of study (music constituting the state).