Lecture notes Sep 13: Introduction to World Music (Fall 2017)

Definitions and concepts, reviewed & continued

Reviewed

• World music
• Ethnomusicology (Ethno-musicology, or ethnomusic-ology)
• Alan Lomax
• Comparative musicology vs. fieldwork (Lomax did both!)
• Ethnocentrism. (Question: is "music" itself ethnocentric?)
• Analyzing world music
  • Cantometrics
  • A set of musical parameters

Continued

• Etic vs. Emic views VS. Outsider vs. Insider views. (Thought question: is any frame truly "etic"? How do you see Cantometrics?)
• Source vs. Reference, critical thinking about representations. (Though question: is there any true reference?)
  • A pure reference contains true assertions
  • A pure source cannot be assumed to contain any true assertions; all we can assert is that its creator --operating in a context -- asserts something (which may be false)
  • Critical thinking (critique) moves source towards reference, through widening circles of context.
  • Consider the work of Austrian psychologist and musicologist Richard Wallaschek (1860-1917), who wrote on comparative musicology and the origins of music. Its assertions may be false. But that the author said these things is true; that these things may have been believed in his contemporary Vienna is true, etc.