SEM History Post

Reading the 1950s Society of Ethnomusicology journals was at times cynically entertaining. The authors often referred to cultures with less-than-politically-correct adjectives such as “primitive” (May 1957, 15), or did such ethically sketchy things as selling field recordings for profit: “Folkways Records…announced discount of 33 1/3% on all ethnic recordings to members of the Society of Ethnomusicologists” (January 1956, 28). These observations were not unexpected given the time period. I had imagined that the articles would be condescending towards other cultures, but I was surprised that they barely discussed the cultures they were studying at all. Many of the SEM articles from the 1950s placed more emphasis on the collection of “music-data” such as recordings, transcriptions, and technical descriptions of instruments, than on the role or development of music in a culture. The SEM articles from 2007 focused more on the role of music in cultures.

The first article I came across when skimming the 1950s SEM Journals was “An Apache Fiddle” by David P. McAllester (September 1956, 1-5). In the article, the author provides lots of detail about the physical specifications, construction, and sound of this unique one-stringed fiddle (McAllester lists specific dimensions, transcribes melodies, and included a diagram) but ignores the role of the fiddle in the Apache culture. McAllester barely acknowledges interacting with Apaches and offers no explanation as to the role of this fiddle music in their culture, focusing instead on the instrument as end. This emphasis on concrete music-data rather than cultural context made the article read less like an anthropology paper, which would synthesize ideas, and more like a how-to book or an architect’s blue-prints. In the same 1956 SEM journal, McAllester gives a positive review of another colleague’s musicological work in central and South America , sighting Samuel Marti’s contributions of “thirty-six transcriptions” and “photographs of ancient and modern instruments” (28). This review again places emphasis on music-data; the author commends Marti on his documentation of the sound and the tools that manifest sound. The ethnomusicologist has completely detached the culture from the concrete aspects of his project.

Mantle Hood, in an article about research methods (January 1957, 2-8), sums-up this 1950s emphasis on music-data, stating that “the ethnomusicologist is a research scholar, and he aims primarily at knowledge about music” (2). This 1950s definition for the role of an ethnomusicologist surprised me and reads more like the definition for the role of a music theorist. Based on all the readings we’ve done so far for Music 1900, it seems that a modern ethnomusicologist might revise Hood’s definition to read “the ethnomusicologist is a research scholar, and he/she aims primarily at understanding the relationship of cultures to music and music to cultures.” Whereas Hood’s definition of “ethnomusicologist” puts emphasis on the tangible qualities of music, this alternate definition values the interplay between culture and music.

The SEM articles I read from 2007 support the newer definition I proposed. In her article “Stepping Across the Divide: Hasidic Music in Today’s Yiddish Canon” (Spring/Summer 2007, 205-237) Abigail Wood spends three pages introducing the Hasidic culture, reflexively prefacing with a description of her experience in Hasidic Brooklyn, before even mentioning music. When she does mention music, Wood first describes the role two closely associated musics, paraliturgical song in Hasidic culture, and klezmer music in secular Jewish culture, before even mentioning her own fieldwork. Her own work does not expound upon the descriptions of both groups’ music. Instead, it focuses on the relationship between these groups. Similarly, Timothy Rommen’s article “’Localize It’: Rock, Cosmopolitanism, and the Nation in Trinidad” (Fall 2007, 371-401) does not focus on describing rock music from Trinidad, but mainly details the role of rock music in Trinidadian culture.

The shift in focus from the earlier to later SEM journals’ articles suggests a gradual shift in the field of ethnomusicology in the last half-century. The focus turns away from a scientific approach, focused on collecting, preserving, and theoretically analyzing music-data, towards a literary or social-science approach, focused on explaining musical-cultural phenomenon.