Ethnomusicology - Linguistics & Semiotics

It is often the case that interests in ethnomusicology stem from trends in anthropology, and this no different for symbols. In 1949, anthropologist Leslie White wrote, "the symbol is the basic unit of all human behavior and civilization," and that use of symbols is a distinguishing characteristic of humans. Once symbolism was at the core of anthropology, scholars sought to examine music "as a symbol or system of signs or symbols," leading to the establishment of the field of musical semiotics.

Bruno Nettl discusses various issues relating ethnomusicology to musical semiotics, including the wide variety of culturally dependent, listener-derived meanings attributed to music and the problems of authenticity in assigning meaning to music. Some of the meanings that musical symbols can reflect can relate to emotion, culture, and behavior, much in the same way that linguistic symbols function.

The interdisciplinarity of symbolism in anthropology, linguistics, and musicology has generated new analytical outlooks (see Analysis) with different focuses: Anthropologists have traditionally conceived of whole cultures as systems of symbols, while musicologists have tended to explore symbolism within particular repertories. Structural approaches seek to uncover interrelationships between symbolic human behaviors.

In the 1970s, a number of scholars, including musicologist Charles Seeger and semiotician Jean-Jacques Nattiez, proposed using methodology commonly employed in linguistics as a new way for ethnomusicologists to study music. This new approach, widely influenced by the works of linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce, and anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, among others, focused on finding underlying symbolic structures in cultures and their music.

In a similar vein, Judith Becker and Alton L. Becker theorized the existence of musical "grammars" in their studies of the theory of Javanese gamelan music. They proposed that music could be studied as symbolic and that it bears many resemblances to language, making semiotic study possible. Classifying music as a humanity rather than science, Nattiez suggested that subjecting music to linguistic models and methods might prove more effective than employing the scientific method. He proposed that the inclusion of linguistic methods in ethnomusicology would increase the field's interdependence, reducing the need to borrow resources and research procedures from exclusively other sciences.

John Blacking was another ethnomusicologist who sought to create an ethnomusicological parallel to linguistic models of analysis. In his work on Venda music, he writes, "The problem of musical description is not unlike that in linguistic analysis: a particular grammar should account for the processes by which all existing and all possible sentences in the language are generated." Blacking sought more than sonic description. He wanted to create a musical analytical grammar, which he coined the Cultural Analysis of Music, that could incorporate both sonic description and how cultural and social factors influence structures within music. Blacking desired a unified method of musical analysis that "...can not only be applied to all music, but can explain both the form, the social and emotional content, and the effects of music, as systems of relationships between an infinite number of variables." Like Nattiez, Blacking saw a universal grammar as a necessary for giving ethnomusicology a distinct identity. He felt that ethnomusicology was just a "meeting ground" for anthropology of music and the study of music in different cultures, and lacked a distinguishing characteristic in scholarship. He urged others in the field to become more aware and inclusive of the non-musical processes that occur in the making of music, as well as the cultural foundation for certain properties of the music in any given culture, in the vein of Alan Merriam's work.

Some musical languages have been identified as more suited to linguistically focused analysis than others. Indian music, for example, has been linked more directly to language than music of other traditions.[67] Critics of musical semiotics and linguistic-based analytical systems, such as Steven Feld, argue that music only bears significant similarity to language in certain cultures and that linguistic analysis may frequently ignore cultural context.

Since ethnomusicology evolved from comparative musicology, some ethnomusicologists' research features analytical comparison. The problems arising from using these comparisons stem from the fact that there are different kinds of comparative studies with a varying degree of understanding between them. Beginning in the late 60s, ethnomusicologists who desired to draw comparisons between various musics and cultures have used Alan Lomax's idea of cantometrics. Some cantometric measurements in ethnomusicology studies have been shown be relatively reliable, such as the wordiness parameter, while other methods are not as reliable, such as precision of enunciation. Another approach, introduced by Steven Feld, is for ethnomusicologists interested in creating ethnographically detailed analysis of people's lives; this comparative study deals with making pairwise comparisons about competence, form, performance, environment, theory, and value/equality. Bruno Nettl has noted as recently as 2003 that comparative study seems to have fallen in and out of style, noting that although it can supply conclusions about the organization of musicological data, reflections on history or the nature of music as a cultural artifact, or understanding some universal truth about humanity and its relationship to sound, it also generates a great deal of criticism regarding ethnocentrism and its place in the field.

Ethnochoreology

The definition of ethnochoreology stands to have many similarities with the current way of studying of ethnomusicology. With ethnochoreology's roots in anthropology taken into account, and by the way that it is studied in the field, dance is most accurately defined and studied within this academic circle as two parts: as "an integral part of a network of social events" and "as a part of a system of knowledge and belief, social behavior and aesthetic norms and values". That is, the study of dance in its performance aspects-the physical movements, costumes, stages, performers, and accompanied sound- along with the social context and uses within the society where it takes place.

Because of its growth alongside ethnomusicology, the beginning of ethnochoreology also had a focus on the comparative side of things, where the focus was on classifying different styles based on the movements used and the geographical location in a way not dissimilar to Lomax. This is best shown in "Benesh Notation and Ethnochoreology" in 1967 which was published in the ethnomusicology journal, where Hall advocates using the Benesh notation as a way of documenting dance styles so that it is "possible to compare styles and techniques in detail - even 'schools' within one style - and individual variations in execution from dancer to dancer." In the seventies and eighties, like with ethnomusicology, ethnochoreology had a focus on a very specific communicative type of "folklore music" performed by small groups and the context and performance aspects of dance were studied and emphasized to be a part of a whole "folkloric dance" that needed to be preserved. This was influenced by the same human centered "thick description" way of study that had moved into ethnomusicology. However, at this time, the sound and dance aspects of the performances studied were still studied and analyzed a bit separately from the context and social aspects of the culture around the dance.

Beginning in the mid eighties, there has been a reflexively interpretive way of writing about dance in culture that is more conscious of the impact of the scholar within the field and how it affects the culture and its relationship with the dance that the scholar is looking into.[240] For example, because most scholars until this point were searching for the most "authentic" folk, there was a lack of study on individual performers, popular dances, and dances of subgroups groups within a culture such as women, youth, and members of the LGBT community. In contrast, this newer wave of study wanted a more open study of dance within a culture. Additionally, there was a shift for a more mutual give and take between the scholar and the subjects, who in field work, also assist the scholars as teachers and informants.

Although there are many similarities between ethnochoreology and ethnomusicology, there is a large difference between the current geographical scope of released studies. For example, from the beginning of ethnomusicology, there was a large focus on African and Asian musics, due to them seeming to have the most deviation from their norm while ethnochoreology, also beginning in Europe, has long had extensive studies of the Eastern European "folk dances" with relatively little of African and Asian dances, however American studies have delved into Native American and Southeast Asian dance. However, the very basis of this being a difference could be challenged on the basis that many European ethnomusicological and ethnochoreological studies have been done on the "home" folk music and dance in the name of nationalism.