Gender
Gender concerns have more recently risen to prominence in the methodology of ethnomusicology. Modern researchers often criticize historical works of ethnomusicology as showing gender-biased research and androcentric theoretical models that do not reflect reality. There are many reasons for this issue. Historically, ethnomusicological fieldwork often focused on the musical contributions of men, in line with the underlying assumption that male-dominated musical practices were reflective of musical systems of a society as a whole.
Women contributed extensively to ethnomusicological fieldwork from the 1950s onward, but women's and gender studies in ethnomusicology took off in the 1970s. Ellen Koskoff articulates three stages in women's studies within ethnomusicology: first, a corrective approach that filled in the basic gaps in our knowledge of women's contributions to music and culture; second, a discussion of the relationships between women and men as expressed through music; third, integrating the study of sexuality, performance studies, semiotics, and other diverse forms of meaning-making. Since the 1990s, ethnomusicologists have begun to consider the role of the fieldworker's identity, including gender and sexuality, in how they interpret the music of other cultures. Until the emergence of notions like feminist ethnomusicology in late 1980s (which derived its momentum from Third Wave feminism), women within ethnomusicology were limited to serve as interpreters of content created and recorded by men.
Despite the historical trend of overlooking gender, modern ethnomusicologists believe that studying gender can provide a useful lens to understand the musical practices of a society. Considering the divisions of gender roles in society, ethnomusicologist Ellen Koskoff writes: "Many societies similarly divide musical activity into two spheres that are consistent with other symbolic dualisms", including such culture-specific, gender-based dualisms as private/public, feelings/actions, and sordid (provocative)/holy. In some cultures, music comes to reflect those divisions in such a way that women's music and instrumentation is viewed as "non-music" as opposed to men's "music". These and other dualities of musical behavior can help demonstrate societal views of gender, whether the musical behavior supports or subverts gender roles. In her analysis, Koskoff pinpoints a way in which this "symbolic dualism" manifests itself literally: the relationship between the form or shape of one's instrument and the player's gender identity; Koskoff's research demonstrates that often, "the life-giving roles of either sex are seen or reproduced in their shape or playing motion." Moving outside the analytical scope of gender and adopting a more intersectional lens, Koskoff also remarks on how female musical behavior is affiliated with heightened sexuality, with numerous different cultures holding similar yet unique criteria of eroticized dance movements (e.g. "among the Swahili...all-female gathering where young women do hip-rotations to learn the 'right' sexual movements). It is here where Koskoff integrates notions of the private vs. public sphere, examining how in certain cultures, female musical performance is not only linked to notions of heightened female sexuality, it is also associated with "implied or real prostitution," thus insinuating a potential class hierarchy differentiating the society subcultures surrounding private vs. public female musical performance.
The tendency for public music performed by single women of child-bearing age to be associated with sex, while performances by older or married women tends to downplay or even deny their sexuality, suggests not only that music performance is linked to societal perception of a woman’s sexual viability decreasing with age or marriage, but also that female sexuality is often necessarily included in the expression of a feminine gender through musical performance. The cloistering and separation of women’s music actually offer a way for women to relate to one another or to understand and express their gender identity through musical practice within a more women-centric space. The private, intimate nature of some women’s music can also lead to secret protest behavior when that music is brought into the public sphere. Koskoff indicates that secret symbolic behavior and language coded into women’s performance may communicate private messages to other women in the community, allowing these performers to speak out against an unwanted marriage, mock a possible suitor, or even express homosexuality without the male audience catching on. As such, music performance may confirm and maintain these gender inequalities and social/sexual dynamics, may protest norms as it maintains them, or it may actually challenge and threaten the established order. One example of musical performance traditions that confirm social/sexual dynamics may be the trend of prioritizing a female musician’s physical appeal over her technical musical skill when judging her performance, which shows a devaluation of female musical expression in favor of objectification of the feminine physicality through the public gaze. Koskoff recalls that women musicians who do manage to become popular in mainstream culture may start to take on masculine-coded musical qualities, even if it was their expression of femininity through performance that initially elicited their acclaim.
Since Koskoff’s book was published, contemporary ethnomusicologists have continued to study the practices and dynamics she cites in more detail. In “Sounds of Power: An Overview of Musical Instruments and Gender”, Veronica Doubleday extends the examination of feminine gender expression in music performance to the use of specific musical instruments. She reiterates that in patriarchal societies, the role of a man in a marriage tends to be one of ownership and control, while a married woman often takes on a position of submission and subordination. As such, Doubleday suggests that when constructing a relationship with their instruments, men may incorporate their cultural expectation of dominance, whereas women may be unlikely to take power over an instrument in the same way. If the physical allure of a female musician takes priority over her technique, female gender expression through music performance may be confined to that which upholds traditional notions of female beauty and objectification. Doubleday relates this to the distinction of “suitable” instruments for women as those that require no physical exertions that may disrupt the graceful portrait of the woman, or instruments that take an accompaniment role to the performer’s singing. Exploring more modern musical traditions, ethnomusicologist Gibb Schreffler recounts the role of Punjabi women in music in the context of migration in “Migration Shaping Media: Punjabi Popular Music in a Global Historical Perspective”. As women are often the bearers of tradition in Punjabi culture, they hold important roles in many traditional Punjabi rituals, including those that involve music, which help enable emigrants to maintain Punjabi culture wherever they are.[136] Schreffler also notes that as a result of migration, bhangra music has enabled the reformation of traditional gender roles in the public sphere through the performance of music: “In creating a ‘dance floor,’ women were allowed to mingle with men in ways they had not done before”.
Similarly, in “Music and the Negotiation of Orthodox Jewish Gender Roles in Partnership ‘Minyanim’”, a study of gender dynamics within Orthodox Jewish culture as disrupted by minyanim partner dance, Dr. Gordon Dale documents how partnership minyanim dance may actively reinterpret Orthodox Jewish religious law in establishing a new context for women's performance. The grounding of a new female music performance tradition in religion is particularly noteworthy considering the ways in which women are often excluded from religious music, both in the Orthodox Jewish consideration of female singing as inappropriate or weaponized sexual behavior that conflicts with expectations of modesty, and across diverse cultural spheres, as shown in Hagedorn’s example of the batá drum. In this instance, feminine musical expression becomes a highly political issue, with right-wing Orthodox men insisting it was impossible for a man to hear a woman singing without experiencing it as a sexual act, and male partnership minyan participants concluding instead that certain considerations of modesty were not applicable in the context of their prayer. Therefore, a woman’s singing voice could also be considered a sound of gender liberation against Orthodox power structures. Dale explains that while religious women's music initiatives from other cultures such as Indonesian women chanting from the Qur’an as described by Anne Rasmussen, this type of partnership mynamin requires Orthodoxy to actually create a new religious space in which “men and women can express their religious and feminist values side by side”. Though restrictions on the availability of female roles in worship mean that minyamin must focus more on gender-based partnership than on explicit equality, partnership minyamin still forge a unique musical prayer space in Jewish culture that listens to and encourages women’s voices. He describes one interaction with an older woman who was personally uncomfortable leading religious worship, but greatly appreciated observing other women in that role. Simply singing alongside women in an unrestrained manner served as a comfortable and fulfilling way for her to practice feminism.
There is much room for additional study on the expression of gender through musical performance, including the ways that musical performance can disrupt binary delineations of gender identity and promote the expression of transgender and/or non-binary genders. Koskoff briefly acknowledges that it is possible for performers to “cross over into opposite gender domains, displaying behaviors normally associated with the opposite sex”, which has greater implications for the way that music performance enables the performance of gender identity.
As a result of these new considerations from within the field, efforts to better document and preserve women's contributions to ethnomusicology have increased. With a particular focus on collecting ethnomusicological works (as well as literature from related fields) that address gender inequities within musical performance as well as musical analysis, feminist musicologists Bowers and Bareis published the Biography on Music and Gender – Women in Music, which is arguably the most comprehensive collection compiling ethnomusicological literature meeting this analytical criteria. Although it is not an ethnomusicological book, another Susan McClary's watershed book Feminine Endings (1991) shows "relationships between musical structure and socio-cultural values" and has influenced ethnomusicologists perception of gender and sexuality within the discipline itself. There is a general understanding that Western conceptions of gender, sexuality, and other social constructions do not necessarily apply to other cultures and that a predominantly Western lens can cause various methodological issues for researchers.
The concept of gender in ethnomusicology is also tied to the idea of reflexive ethnography, in which researchers critically consider their own identities in relation to the societies and people they are studying. For example, Katherine Hagedorn uses this technique in Divine Utterances: The Performance of Afro-Cuban Santeria. Throughout her description of her fieldwork in Cuba, Hagedorn remarks how her positionality, through her whiteness, femaleness, and foreignness, afforded her luxuries out of reach of her Cuban counterparts, and how the magnitude of difference in her experience and existence in Cuba was exacerbated by Cuba's economic turmoil after the fall of the Soviet Union during the Cuban Revolution. Her positionality also put her in an "outsider" perspective on Cuban culture and affected her ability to access the culture as a researcher on Santeria. Her whiteness and foreignness, she writes, allowed her to circumvent intimate inter-gender relations centered around performance using the bata drum. Unlike her Cuban female counterparts who faced stigma, she was able to learn to play the bata and thus formulate her research.
Today, the society for ethnomusicology is actively dedicating itself to increasing the presence and stature of gender/sexuality/LGBTQ/feminist scholarship within our respective music societies through forums like The Gender and Sexualities Taskforce within the society for ethnomusicology. The society for ethnomusicology has additionally established awards to celebrate work and research conducted within this intersectional subfield of ethnomusicology. Specifically, the society of ethnomusicology developed the Marcia Herndon Prize, which was created to honor exceptional ethnomusicological work in gender and sexuality including, but not limited to, works that focus upon lesbian, gay, bisexual, two-spirited, homosexual, transgendered and multiple gender issues and communities, as well as to commemorate the deeply influential contributions of Herndon to the field in these arenas. Specifically, Herndon is championed for co-editing Music, Gender, and Culture, a collection of fifteen essays (all authored by women) inspired by the Heidelberg meeting of the Music and Gender Study Group of the International Council for Traditional Music, making key comparisons between the philosophies and behaviors between male and female ethnomusicologists and musicians. This work has prompted a great deal of dialogue among ethnomusicologists and scholars of related fields, including Virginia Giglio, Ph.D., who reviewed Herndon's seminal work, identifying central themes of spirituality, female empowerment, and culturally-defined gender-related duties as specific areas for further exploration among modern feminist ethnomusicologists.
Mass media
In the first chapter of his book Popular Music of the Non-Western World, Peter Manual examines the effect technology has had on non-western music by discussing its ability to disseminate, change, and influence music around the world. He begins with a discussion about definitions of genres, highlighting the difficulties in distinguishing between folk, classical, and popular music, within any one society. By tracing the historical development of the phonograph, radio, cassette recordings, and television, Manuel shows that, following the practice set in the western world, music has become a commodity in many societies, that it no longer has the same capacity to unite a community, to offer a kind of "mass catharsis" as one scholar put it. He stresses that any modern theoretical lens from which to view music must account for the advent of technology.
Martin Stokes uses his book Ethnicity, Identity and Music to examine how the presence of records, tapes, and CD's, and the ability to listen to music removed from its social setting affects identity and social boundaries. Stokes mentions how modernity and new technology has created a separation between place or "locale" (referring to the physical setting of social activity as situated geographically) and space (the location from where the music is being played and listened to.) Stokes calls the separation from space and place, "relocation" and refers to it as an "anxiety ridden process." Stokes believes that music plays an essential role to how individuals "relocate" themselves, claiming that music is unmatched by any other social activity in its ability to evoke and organize collective memory. Stokes also claims that the presence of records, tapes and CD's creates the ability to present experiences of specific places "with an intensity and power and simplicity unmatched." Stokes also touches upon the differences and social boundaries that each "place" holds. Claiming that each "place" organizes "hierarchies of moral and political order" and with each specific evocation of "place," defines the moral and political community to relation to the space in which the listener finds themselves. The possibility of the instant evocation of musical "place" allows individuals to "locate," and identify themselves in a plurality of ways, allowing a unique mix of places and social boundaries. Stokes also goes on to mention how the control of media systems by state-controlled governments, through ownership of its channels is a tool which authoritarian states use. Such control is not certain, as the meanings cannot be totally controlled and the citizens of said state can simply turn off the radio state or tune into another. Stokes believes the technological advancements in sound reproduction has democratized recording and listening, and thus, "weakened the grip of state and music industry monopolies."
The book Music and Technocultures by René T. Lysloff and Leslie C. Gay Jr. speaks upon the nature of the rise of technology. They believe that as technology increases, as does its social consequences. Such technologies do not change the social configurations which existed before new technologies, but instead the people that engage with and use these technologies change, instead. Lysloff and Gay use the emergence of the use of MP3s as an example. The MP3 file format can be combined with other software's to give tools that link online communities of music consumers with vast databases of music files, which individuals then have easy access to gigabytes of digital information. The existence of MP3s and these software's then allows for the new possibilities for the exchange of music and gives greater control to the selection of music to the end user, undermining the power of the popular music industries. Such technologies also allow unsigned artists to distribute their own recordings on an unthinkable scale. Later within the book Gay and Lysloff go on to speak on the effects of technological control on consumer practices. Gay and Lysloff go on to say that "Popular music musicians today are shaped first as 'consumers of technology,' in which musical practices align with consumer practices. Even within the "architectonic" structure of malls and acoustic spaces, they are built to connect with consumer practices, defining territory and motivating shoppers.
Copyright
Copyright is defined as "the exclusive right to make copies, license, and otherwise exploit a literary, musical, or artistic work, whether printed, audio, video, etc." It is imperative because copyright is what dictates where credit and monetary awards should be allocated. While ethnomusicologists conduct fieldwork, they sometimes must interact with the indigenous people. Additionally, since the purpose of the ethnomusicologists being in a particular country is so that she can collect information to make conclusions. The researchers leave their countries of interest with interviews, videos, text, along with multiple other sources of valuable. Rights surrounding music ownership are thus often left to ethics.
The specific issue with copyright and ethnomusicology is that copyright is an American right; however, some ethnomusicologists conduct research in countries that are outside of the United States. For example, Anthony Seeger details his experience while working with the Suyá people of Brazil and the release of their song recordings. The Suyá people have practices and beliefs about inspiration and authorship, where the ownership roots from the animals, spirits, and "owned" by entire communities. In the American copyright laws, they ask for a single original author, not groups of people, animals, or spirits. Situations like Seeger's then result in the indigenous people not being given credit or sometime into being able to have access to the monetary wealth that may come along with the published goods. Seeger also mentions that in some cases, copyright will be granted, but the informant-performer, the researcher, the producer, and the organization funding the research - earns the credit that the indigenous people deserve."
Martin Scherzinger mentions how copyright is dealt with in the Senegal region of Africa. The copyright benefits, such as royalties, from music are allocated to the Senegalese government, and then the government in turn hosts a talent competition, where the winner receives the royalties. Scherzinger offers a differing opinion on copyright, and argues that the law is not inherently ethnocentric. He cites the early ideology behind copyright in the 19th century, stating that spiritual inspiration did not prohibit composers from being granted authorship of their works. Furthermore, he suggests that group ownership of a song is not significantly different from the collective influence in Western classical music of several composers on any individual work.
A solution to some of the copyright issue that the ethnomusicology is having is to push for the broadening of the copyright laws in the United States. To broaden is equivalent to changing who can be cited as the original author of a piece of work to include the values that specific societies have. In order for this to be done, ethnomusicologists have to find a common ground amongst the copyright issues that they have encountered collectively.
Identity
The origins of music and its connections to identity have been debated throughout the history of ethnomusicology. Thomas Turino defines "self," "identity," and "culture" as patterns of habits, such that tendencies to respond to stimuli in particular ways repeat and reinscribe themselves. Musical habits and our responses to them lead to cultural formations of identity and identity groups. For Martin Stokes, the function of music is to exercise collective power, creating barriers among groups. Thus, identity categories such as ethnicity and nationality are used to indicate oppositional content.
Just as music reinforces categories of self-identification, identity can shape musical innovation. George Lipsitz's 1986 case study of Mexican-American music in Los Angeles from the 1950s to the 1980s posits that Chicano musicians were motivated to integrate multiple styles and genres in their music to represent their multifaceted cultural identity. By incorporating Mexican folk music and modern-day barrio influences, Mexican rock-and-roll musicians in LA made commercially successful postmodern records that included content about their community, history, and identity. Lipsitz suggests that the Mexican community in Los Angeles reoriented their traditions to fit the postmodern present. Seeking a "unity of disunity", minority groups can attempt to find solidarity by presenting themselves as sharing experience with other oppressed groups. According to Lipsitz, this disunity creates a disunity that furthermore engenders a "historical bloc," made up of numerous, multifaceted, marginalized cultures.
Lipsitz noted the bifocal nature of the rock group Los Lobos is particularly exemplary of this paradox. They straddled the line by mixing traditional Mexican folk elements with white rockabilly and African American rhythm and blues, while simultaneously conforming to none of the aforementioned genres. That they were commercially successful was unsurprising to Lipsitz- their goal in incorporating many cultural elements equally was to play to everyone. In this manner, in Lipsitz's view, the music served to break down barriers in its up front presentation of "multiple realities".
Lipsitz describes the weakening effect that the dominant (Los Angeles) culture imposes on marginalized identities. He suggests that the mass media dilutes minority culture by representing the dominant culture as the most natural and normal. Lipsitz also proposes that capitalism turns historical traditions of minority groups into superficial icons and images in order to profit on their perception as "exotic" or different. Therefore, the commodification of these icons and images results in the loss of their original meaning.
Minorities, according to Lipsitz, cannot fully assimilate nor can they completely separate themselves from dominant groups. Their cultural marginality and misrepresentation in the media makes them aware of society's skewed perception of them. Antonio Gramsci suggests that there are "experts in legitimization", who attempt to legitimize dominant culture by making it look like it is consented by the people who live under it. He also proposes that the oppressed groups have their own "organic intellectuals" who provide counter-oppressive imagery to resist this legitimization. For example, Low riders used irony to poke fun at popular culture's perception of desirable vehicles, and bands like Los Illegals provided their listening communities with a useful vocabulary to talk about oppression and injustice.
Michael M.J. Fisher breaks down the following main components of postmodern sensibility: "bifocality or reciprocity of perspectives, juxtaposition of multiple realities-intertextuality, inter-referentiality, and comparisons through families of resemblance." A reciprocity of perspectives makes music accessible inside and outside of a specific community. Chicano musicians exemplified this and juxtaposed multiple realities by combining different genres, styles, and languages in their music. This can widen the music's reception by allowing it to mesh within its cultural setting, while incorporating Mexican history and tradition. Inter-referentiality, or referencing relatable experiences, can further widen the music's demographic and help to shape its creators' cultural identities. In doing so, Chicano artists were able to connect their music to "community subcultures and institutions oriented around speech, dress, car customizing, art, theater, and politics." Finally, drawing comparisons through families of resemblance can highlight similarities between cultural styles. Chicano musicians were able to incorporate elements of R&B, Soul, and Rock n' Roll in their music.
Music is not only used to create group identities, but to develop personal identity as well. Frith describes music's ability to manipulate moods and organize daily life. Susan Crafts studied the role of music in individual life by interviewing a wide variety of people, from a young adult who integrated music in every aspect of her life to a veteran who used music as a way to escape his memories of war and share joy with others. Many scholars have commented on the associations that individuals develop of "my music" versus "your music": one's personal taste contributes to a sense of unique self-identity reinforced through the practices of listening to and performing certain music.
As part of a broader inclusion of identity politics (see Gender), ethnomusicologists have become increasingly interested in how identity shapes ethnomusicological work. Fieldworkers have begun to consider their positions within race, economic class, gender, and other identity categories and how they relate to or differ from cultural norms in the areas they study. Katherine Hagedorn's 2001 Book Divine Utterances: The Performance of Afro-Cuban Santería is an example of experiential ethnomusicology, which "...incorporates the author's voice, interpretations, and reactions into the ethnography, musical and cultural analysis, and historical context." The book received the Society for Ethnomusicology's prestigious Alan P. Merriam prize in 2002, marking a broad acceptance of this new method in the institutions of ethnomusicology.
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