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Ethnomusicology Forum

ISSN: 1741-1912 (Print) 1741-1920 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/remf20

Introduction to the Special Issue: The Ethnomusicology of Western Art Music

Laudan Nooshin

To cite this article: Laudan Nooshin (2011) Introduction to the Special Issue: The Ethnomusicology of Western Art Music, Ethnomusicology Forum, 20:3, 285-300, DOI: 10.1080/17411912.2011.659439

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/17411912.2011.659439

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Introduction to the Special Issue: The Ethnomusicology of Western Art Music Laudan Nooshin

In her 2001 article on the early music scene in Boston, Kay Kaufman Shelemay offers

what she hoped would be ‘useful insights into the collapsing musical boundaries in

our changing world and the new agendas that might unite musical scholarship

through a shared pedagogy and practice of musical ethnography’ (2001:1). She goes

on to discuss the ways in which historical musicologists have begun to engage with

ethnographic method previously seen as the reserve of*and indeed characterising* ethnomusicology. Shelemay notes in particular the work of Gary Tomlinson

(for example, 1993), Leo Treitler (1989) and Peter Jeffrey (1992), all of whom have

in various ways thematised notions of historical ‘Otherness’, as well as some of the

contributors to the 1995 special issue of the Journal of the American Musicological

Society on ‘Music Anthropologies and Music Histories’. As I discuss below, Shelemay’s

observation (citing her earlier 1996 article) that ‘On the ground, wherever scholars

actually practice a musical ethnography, it is becoming increasingly difficult to

discern where boundaries conceptualized and named geographically can in fact be

drawn’ (2001:4) has especial salience for the articles presented in this themed issue of

Ethnomusicology Forum; this is symptomatic both of the trend towards ethnography

within musicology (that is, the musicology of western art music, or ‘historical

musicology’ in the United States; henceforth simply ‘musicology’), and more broadly

of changes within the discipline since the late 1980s which have led to a growing

interest in and engagement with ethnomusicological thought and method.

More or less concomitant with these changes within musicology, ethnomusicol-

ogists became increasingly interested in the study of urban traditions, particularly as

part of what has been termed ‘ethnomusicology at home’. In turn, this engagement

with the familiar led to greater attention to what Bruno Nettl*in his study of an exemplar music school in the American mid-west*described as ‘the last bastion of unstudied musical culture’ (1995:2): western classical music; unstudied, that is, from

Laudan Nooshin is Senior Lecturer in Ethnomusicology at City University London. She has published widely on

various aspects of Iranian music culture, including creative processes in Iranian classical music and music and

youth culture in Iran. Recent publications include the edited volume Music and the Play of Power in the Middle

East, North Africa and Central Asia (Ashgate Press, 2009). Her forthcoming monograph is entitled Iranian

Classical Music: The Discourses and Practice of Creativity (Ashgate). Since 2008, Laudan has been co-Editor of

Ethnomusicology Forum. Correspondence to: Laudan Nooshin, Centre for Music Studies, City University

London, Northampton Square, London EC1V 0HB, UK. Email: [email protected]

ISSN 1741-1912 (print)/ISSN 1741-1920 (online)/11/030285-16

# 2011 Taylor & Francis

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17411912.2011.659439

Ethnomusicology Forum

Vol. 20, No. 3, December 2011, pp. 285�300

an ethnomusicological perspective. For Nettl, this represented the culmination of

many years of writing about ‘other’ musics, as he describes reaching a point where

‘eventually, also having practiced the outsider’s view, to look also at the familiar as if

it were not, at one’s own culture as if one were a foreigner to it’ (1995:1). Martin

Stokes also sees this trend as an indication of ‘Ethnomusicology’s coming of age . . .

demonstrated in its ability to interrogate the familiar and the similar, not just the

exotic and different’ (2008:209). Shelemay goes further, arguing that such a move is

an important step towards ‘de-colonising’ ethnomusicology and helping the field to

‘emerge from behind a veil of cross-cultural difference’ (2001:25).

Two points emerge from these observations, one concerning the apparent

convergence of different areas of music study; and the second, following on from

this, the question of (sub)disciplinary identities and their continued usefulness or

otherwise. These questions have been explored fairly extensively in recent years, most

notably in Henry Stobart’s (2008) edited volume The New (Ethno)musicologies, but

also in writings by Shelemay (1996), Jonathan Stock (1997a), Tomlinson (2003, on

the relationship between ethnography and historiography), and more recently

Georgina Born (2010). In particular, the trends above have prompted anxieties

about disciplinary boundaries: if ethnomusicology is no longer characterised (at least

in large part) by its engagement with ‘other’ musics, and if musicologists are starting

to draw on ethnography as a central research methodology, what are the implications

for the relationship between these two areas of music studies? Before considering

this question further, however, it should first be noted that*Nettl’s comments notwithstanding*there have in fact been a number of ethnomusicological studies of western art music over the past several decades, admittedly not all strongly

ethnographic. Nettl himself, in a landmark article published in 1963, sought to

apply the techniques of ethnomusicology to ‘western’ music by conducting a

questionnaire survey of college students examining their classifications of music, and

asking what these might reveal about aspects of culture beyond music. More than two

decades later, Nettl adopted a similar approach in seeking to understand ‘the

relationship of the musical system to the rest of culture’ (1989:8) through examining

how music is studied and what is valued within western music education. In his

earlier 1963 piece (a response to an article by Merriam on the purposes of

ethnomusicology), Nettl proposes that ethnomusicology’s uniqueness, and what it

might usefully offer to other areas of music study, lies not in any distinct purpose (as

suggested by Merriam) but in its techniques and approaches. Almost 50 years on, this

idea is thoroughly borne out by the articles presented in this volume.

A number of other scholars have similarly sought to apply the techniques and

approaches of ethnomusicology to the study and understanding of western art music.

Some of this work has focused on institutions such as music schools (Cameron 1982;

Kingsbury 1988; Nettl 1995), research centres (Born 1995) and orchestras (Herndon

1988; Small 1987), whilst others examine particular locales or communities (see

Bohlman 1991; Brennan 1999; Finnegan 1989; see also Wachsmann 1981). Since the

early 2000s, a growing body of literature has emerged, including several monographs

286 L. Nooshin

and doctoral dissertations (see, for example, Beckles Willson 2009a, 2009b; Cottrell

2004; El-Ghadban 2009; Etherington 2007*and several other chapters in Kartomi, Dreyfus and Pear 2007; Everett and Lau 2004; Melvin and Cai 2004; Pitts 2005; Pitts

and Spencer 2008; Sailer 2004; Shelemay 2001; Usner 2010; Wint 2012; Yoshihari

2007), and this work is by no means the sole preserve of ethnomusicologists, but

includes writings by music educators, performers, musicologists, anthropologists and

others, arguably attracting a more diverse range of scholars than many other areas of

ethnomusicological study. The current issue seeks to contribute to this field of

research and is, to my knowledge, the first collection of essays on the topic. The aim

of this brief introduction is not to present an exhaustive survey of extant literature on

the ethnomusicology of western art music (for a useful overview of such work to the

early 2000s, see Cottrell 2004:2�8), but to explore some of the themes and issues which emerge from this area of study.

Several of the chapters in Stobart’s volume invoke a somewhat binary characterisa-

tion of music studies that focuses on the relationship between musicology on the one

hand and ethnomusicology on the other. Clearly, this only captures a particular slice of

music studies broadly conceived: where in this binary would one position music

psychology, popular music studies, performance studies, music education or music

informatics, for instance? 1

Moreover, the correlates with cognate disciplines outside

music*media studies, history, anthropology, sociology, psychology, linguistics, and so on*can often be as strong as those between different areas of music studies. These comments notwithstanding, and however one conceives the field of music studies and

its internal and external relationships, if one retains the musicology/ethnomusicology

binary for the moment, there is much to suggest that we are indeed working in an era

of methodological, if not disciplinary, convergence. Several scholars use the term. Stokes,

for instance, notes the recent ‘convergence of people working in different disciplines

and intellectual traditions on new musical subjects and objects’ (2008:207) and

Nicholas Cook, in a chapter in the same volume, observes that:

. . . a major convergence of interests between musicology and ethnomusicology has taken place, and [that] as a result there is as yet untapped potential for the sharing or cross-fertilization of methods for pursuing them. (2008:51)

As evidence for such convergence, Cook cites both the 2000 joint conference of the

American Musicological Society, the Society for Ethnomusicology and other North

American scholarly music societies, at which it was often difficult to tell which society

was sponsoring a particular session; and his experience of reading two doctoral

dissertations by authors in distinct fields of music research but whose theoretical

approaches and methodologies overlapped significantly. As will be discussed below,

the articles in this volume tell a similar story. Tracing some of the more significant

changes within musicology, Cook notes the ‘shift[ed,] in the closing decades of the

twentieth century, towards the understanding of music in its multiple cultural

contexts, embracing production, performance, reception, and all other activities by

virtue of which music is constructed as a significant cultural practice’ (2008:49);

Ethnomusicology Forum 287

greater scholarly reflexivity; increased attention to performance (away from the

notated score); and particularly a move towards understanding ‘music as an agent of

meaning rather than just a reflection of it’, such that ‘music’s meanings . . . [are

understood] as something constantly renewed and regenerated through social usage’

(2008:56�57). Cook describes this as the ‘ethnomusicologization of musicology’ (2008:65), although of course not all of these changes necessarily came via

ethnomusicology. The extent to which musicology has changed over the last 15

years is made clear by the fact that Stock’s (1997a) characterisation of the differences

between musicology and ethnomusicology now seems surprisingly (and pleasingly)

dated if one looks at current work in the field. There is no doubt that both

musicology and ethnomusicology have changed, and there has certainly been

convergence: but its degree is debateable. The idea expressed by Cook that

musicology and ethnomusicology have arrived at the same place*but by different routes, which has complicated their relationship*is not shared by all. His now (in)famous conclusion that ‘we are all musicologists now’ was strongly contested at

the 2001 one-day conference of the British Forum for Ethnomusicology at which

Cook presented an earlier version of his 2008 article, leading to a re-formulation in

the published version to: ‘we are all ethnomusicologists now’ (bringing him more in

line with Frank Harrison’s much earlier 1963 statement that ‘it is the function of all

musicology to be in fact ethnomusicology’, cited by Cook from Lieberman 1997:200

[2008:65]). As distinctions of ‘insider’/‘outsider’ and self/other, on which the

musicology/ethnomusicology divide was initially founded, become increasingly

blurred and perhaps redundant, Cook concludes that ‘distinguishing between

musicology and ethnomusicology seems to me as hopeless as it is pointless’

(2008:64). Amongst those who might concur one could list Nettl, John Blacking,

Jim Samson and Shelemay, the latter arguing strongly for a more integrated field of

music studies (Shelemay 1996). On the other hand, Kerman (1985) and Stock

(1997a) are somewhat more sceptical, the former based on the assertion that ‘Western

music is just too different from other musics’ (Kerman 1985:174)*with the implication that ethnomusicologists only study ‘non-western’ music*the latter based on differences in approach.

Much of the debate around these issues rests on an underlying assumption that

convergence is in principle ‘a good thing’, if not always possible. A somewhat different

perspective has recently been put forward by Georgina Born (2010), who

characterises the debate as perhaps overly concerned with achieving an affable

consensus*and describing Nicholas Cook (in his 2008 article) as acting as a ‘marriage broker’ (2010:215). Instead, she asks whether, in ‘the wished-for

rapprochement between the subdisciplines of music scholarship’ (209), ‘Do we

perhaps give up too much of the rich and idiosyncratic patchwork of subdisciplinary

histories by suggesting such an integration? Do we suppress the agonistic pleasures of

continuing inter-subdisciplinary dialogues?’ (2010:206). Instead, she proposes a

‘relational musicology’ which draws on the productive tension of the ‘agonistic� antagonistic’ mode of interdisciplinarity in which:

288 L. Nooshin

. . . research is conceived neither as a synthesis nor in terms of a disciplinary division of labour, but as driven by an agonistic or antagonistic relation to existing forms of disciplinary knowledge and practice. Here, interdisciplinarity springs from a self-conscious dialogue with, criticism of, or opposition to, the intellectual, aesthetic, ethical or political limits of established disciplines, or the status of academic research in general . . . This does not mean that what is produced by such interdisciplinarity can be reduced to these antagonisms; nor does it imply any overtly conflictual relations between emergent interdiscipline and prior disciplinary formation. Rather, with the agonistic-antagonistic mode we highlight how this kind of interdisciplinary practice stems from a commitment or desire to contest or transcend the given epistemological and ontological foundations of historical disciplines*a move that makes the new interdiscipline irreducible to its ‘antecedent disciplines’ . . . What is remarkable about the agonistic-antagonistic mode is that it is often intended to effect more radical shifts in knowledge practices, shifts that are at once epistemic and ontological. (Born 2010:211)

In asking what a truly integrated field of music studies might look like, Born

questions whether earlier promises of sub-disciplinary dialogue or integration (for

instance in Mark Everist and Nicholas Cook’s [1999] volume Rethinking Music), have

delivered; she suggests that any such field would need to both ‘disrupt[ing] the

conceptual boundary between music and the social’ (221) and engage more fully with

‘the sciences of the cultural, social and temporal, which is to say anthropology,

sociology and history’ (2010:210) (some might argue that they have been doing the

latter for many decades).

Notwithstanding these ongoing and healthy debates about the relationship

between the various musicologies, work on the ground clearly suggests that the

dividing line between musicology and ethnomusicology (if we take that particular

binary) is less clear than ever. Scholars may continue to feel a sense of belonging and

allegiance to particular disciplinary ‘homes’, but the work itself becomes increasingly

difficult to categorise according to disciplinary boundaries. This will be discussed

further in relation to the specific articles in this volume, in the context of which

Bohlman’s observation almost two decades ago that ‘different domains within the

study of music . . . no longer simply co-exist, but rather interact to change the spatial construction of the field. No domain is spared from the approaches of its discursive

cohabitants*say, historical musicology from analysis, ethnomusicology from history, or music theory from cultural contexts’ (1993:435; emphasis added) seems particularly

pertinent.

The Current Volume

The current volume marks an important milestone for Ethnomusicology Forum as the

journal moves from two to three issues per year. It is also something of a personal

watershed as I come to the end of my four-year term as journal co-Editor. When

Andrew Killick and I assumed co-editorship of the journal in September 2007, one of

our aims was to provide a platform for work which crossed or contested disciplinary

boundaries, and we did this in various ways, including through themed issues*for

Ethnomusicology Forum 289

example, the special volumes on ‘Screened Music: Global Perspectives’ (in 2009) and

‘Ethnomusicology and the Music Industries’ (in 2010); by inviting guest editors from

outside ethnomusicology, such as film music composer and musicologist Miguel

Mera; by including interviews with music industry figures such as Ben Mandelson (in

2010); and by publishing work by scholars from outside ethnomusicology such as

popular musicologist Nicola Dibben (in 2009), music psychologists Ian Cross (in

2010) and Ruth Herbert (in 2011), and music archaeologist Graeme Lawson (in

2010). For myself in particular, seeking to break down what, since the earliest days of

my ethnomusicological training, I have regarded as the somewhat artificial

boundaries between musicology and ethnomusicology was something of a mission.

Even before my editorial term started, I was exploring the idea of a special issue that

would examine the intersection of ethnomusicology and musicology by publishing

current research by both musicologists and ethnomusicologists on some aspect

of western art music. Quite fortuitously, my appointment coincided with the

2007 biennial conference of the International Council for Traditional Music, held in

Vienna, where I heard a particularly inspiring presentation by Eric Usner on the

politics of the 2006 Mozart Year, which had ended just six months before the

conference. 2

The paper is published in extended form here. From this time, I knew

that this was a topic with great potential, and I even toyed briefly with the idea of a

special issue on the ethnomusicology of Mozart. As I started to plan the current issue,

I became increasingly alerted both to musicologists undertaking work which could be

described as broadly ethnomusicological, particularly in their use of ethnographic

method, and of ethnomusicologists working on western art music. This issue has had

a long gestation but it gives me the greatest pleasure that my final task as co-Editor of

a journal that I played a small role in helping to establish 20 years ago should be to

produce a volume which resonates with some of my deepest held scholarly

convictions*as someone who came to ethnomusicology as a classically-trained musician and for whom the study of ethnomusicology changed forever how I would

experience ‘my’ music. Continuing in self-reflexive mode for a moment, I also

wonder whether the urge to seek out commonalities and to challenge binary

constructions such as East/West and musicology/ethnomusicology*a challenge which is, incidentally, precisely what the ethnomusicology of western art music

does*arises partly from my own experiences as a post-colonial ‘other’ living in one of the metropolitan power centres of the global ‘north’.

This volume comprises five main articles, followed by a short reflective item by

(ethnomusicologist) Pirkko Moisala on the process of writing a (largely musicolo-

gical) book about contemporary Finnnish composer Kaija Saariaho. The main

articles begin with Rachel Beckles Willson’s study of European and North American

music teachers working on Palestine’s West Bank as part of international aid

investment in the region. The article examines some of the issues around teachers’

motivations for taking up work in the West Bank, their expectations and the

realities*political and social*once they arrive, as well as considering what such western musical intervention in the region means, whether framed in terms of the

290 L. Nooshin

supposed civilising effects of western classical music or offering children an

alternative to everyday violence. In particular, Beckles Willson points to some

interesting resonances between the role that such teachers see themselves as playing

and that of European mission in nineteenth-century Palestine. The next article, by

Tina K. Ramnarine, explores the symphony orchestra as an agent of civil society.

Beginning with a consideration of the metaphor of ‘orchestra as society’, Ramnarine

focuses on three case studies of projects through which UK-based orchestras have

sought to attract new audiences through various initiatives and outreach

programmes, partly in response to an ageing and diminishing listenership.

Ramnarine examines the potential of such programmes to effect lasting social

change, and asks what role the orchestra can play in relation to issues of race equality,

economic poverty, environmentalism, and so on. The next article, by Melissa C.

Dobson and Stephanie Pitts, also focuses on new audiences, reporting on a project

with ‘first-time attenders’ at western classical music concerts. Project participants in

London and Sheffield attended a number of concerts, followed by both focus group

discussions and one-to-one interviews. Dobson and Pitts present the results of the

project, quoting extensively from participants on their experiences of concert

attendance, experiences that were shaped by both musical and social factors. Dobson

and Pitts’ conclusions have significant potential practical application in terms of

understanding the needs and expectations of newcomers to classical music concerts.

The authors also reflect on the interface between the social psychology of music (in

which their work is rooted) and ethnomusicology, considering what the latter can

bring to such a study, particularly in terms of ‘balancing the desire to generalise

findings to populations with recognition of the benefits of focusing on individual

listening experiences to gain deeper insights into this multifarious phenomenon’. In

‘Ethnographic Research into Contemporary String Quartet Rehearsal’, Amanda

Bayley traces a single work*Michael Finnnisy’s Second String Quartet*‘from composition, through rehearsal and performance, to reflections on performance’, as

performed by the Kreutzer Quartet, focusing primarily on the only rehearsal of the

piece, which was also attended by the composer. Asking how ‘methodologies from

ethnomusicology can advance our understanding of rehearsal and performance in the

string quartet tradition’, Bayley uses quantitative and qualitative methods (observa-

tion, interviews, questionnaires, recording of the rehearsal) to examine various

aspects of the rehearsal process, including the structuring of time, the kinds of

language used and interactions between the performers and between performers and

composer, and the role of negotiation and collaboration in shaping the musical work.

The result is a ‘rehearsal model’ which offers the possibility of comparison with

rehearsals of other pieces, by other ensembles or in the context of other performer� composer collaborations. The final article, by Eric Usner, explores the events marking

the Mozart Year 2006, the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth*focusing on events in Vienna*during which ‘Mozart’ became mobilised as a cultural signifier, variously presented and received as ‘tradition’, as a folklore spectacle for tourists, as national

heritage, as commercial brand or commodity, and as oppositional popular culture.

Ethnomusicology Forum 291

Through a detailed examination of the official WienMozart2006 festival, and the

associated New Crowned Hope ‘festival within a festival’, Usner argues that the recent

reconfiguring of Vienna as a new site of the cosmopolitan is in fact rooted in a much

older cosmopolitanism which marked fin de siècle Vienna at the turn of the twentieth

century.

As might be expected from a group of authors, most of whom at least partially self-

identify as cultural insiders*depending on how the ‘inside’ is defined*several raise issues around the problematic insider/outsider binary. For instance, Bayley sees her

role ‘as a cultural insider and simultaneously outsider to the Kreutzer Quartet . . . As

an experienced viola player in string quartets, as well as larger chamber music

ensembles and orchestras, I write as an outsider with an insider’s knowledge’. Such

fluid scholarly identities are particularly marked in this kind of ethnography amongst

peers, as both Cottrell (in his landmark study of orchestral musicians in London) and

Shelemay observe, and bring their own challenges:

The close and symbiotic relationship between those active in the early music movement and the scholars who were ostensibly studying the scene provided a challenging venture in ‘insider’ ethnography . . . the borders between the identity of the researcher and subject in the early music study can only be described as blurred . . . as members of the research team became at once musicians, audience members, or occasionally, critics. (Shelemay 2001:7�8)

In an interesting inversion, for Dobson and Pitts it is the research participants who

are ‘outsiders’ to the music culture under study, whilst the researchers are the

notional ‘insiders’. Adopting an ethnomusicological approach to western art music

requires scholars to both re-assess their relationship to the music culture and to

question some of their most fundamental assumptions, by (to quote again from

Nettl) ‘look[ing] also at the familiar as if it were not’ (Nettl 1995:1). Discussing the

advantages and disadvantages of ‘insider’ ethnography, Cottrell includes amongst the

latter the fact that:

Not having to learn a language might make one think less about exactly what words mean, how they are used and what this might reveal about underlying concepts. Being familiar with certain customs excludes the learning process that comes with not being familiar and the insights which may arise from this learning . . . (2004:16�17)

In her contribution to this volume, Moisala describes her attempt to adopt such a

position*one ‘that does not take prior knowledge for granted’*in relation to an already familiar music:

My point of departure was that of a ‘learner’s perspective’, in the sense that I approached Saariaho’s music as a foreign cultural expression. Even though I have been interested in contemporary art music for decades and had studied the scores

292 L. Nooshin

and other written documents in advance of my interviews in order to prepare questions, I purposely asked questions that did not assume a common ground.

The original aim of this special issue was to present a snapshot of current research

on the ethnomusicology of western art music undertaken by both musicologists and

ethnomusicologists. What I had not anticipated was the extent to which it became

almost impossible to distinguish between the work of scholars from different

(sub)disciplinary areas. Much of this is due to the adoption of ethnographic methods

by those scholars who come from a broadly musicological background. The resulting

volume is a collection of essays that reflect on and engage with a range of musical

‘actors’ and their discourses, the latter garnered through interviews, questionnaires

and (participant) observation, and focused variously on performers and a composer

in the rehearsal (rather than performance) context (Bayley); audiences who are

newcomers to the very particular music culture of western art music (Dobson and

Pitts); music educators reflecting on their role as propagators of western art music in

an area of heightened political and cultural sensitivity (Beckles Willson); or more

generally exploring the cultural work carried out in the context of orchestral outreach

programmes (Ramnarine) and the symbolic valency of one particular historical

composer-figure in relation to contemporary constructions of music culture (Usner).

Asking authors directly about their respective musical/musicological backgrounds

and how they define or position themselves in relation to the broad field of music

studies elicited responses which revealed a complex of ‘pathways’, belying the simple

musicology/ethnomusicology binary noted above. Contributors to the current issue

describe themselves as having a background and working in a range of areas

including the social psychology of music, music education (‘two areas where the

boundaries are already blurred because of their joint concerns about how people

learn, use and respond to music’ [Pitts, personal communication, 6 January 2012]),

empirical musicology, performance studies, analysis, and ethnomusicology; and

beyond music studies, in postcolonial studies, anthropology, cultural studies and

interdisciplinary critical studies. Two of the authors (Beckles Willson and Ramnarine)

began their careers as professional performers, later moving to musicological and

then ethnomusicological research, one via a doctorate and later academic positions in

anthropology (Ramnarine). Both were hesitant to define themselves in disciplinary

terms: ‘I don’t like to restrict myself to any particular disciplines and I’ve also done a

lot in, for example, postcolonial studies and in cultural studies. Maybe I’m a perfect

example of why disciplinary boundaries are becoming blurred!’ (Ramnarine, personal

communication, 6 January 2012). Given the range of disciplinary allegiances, then, I

have been struck by how much the articles share in terms of approach and

methodology. Granted, this is only a small sample of contemporary ethno/

musicological writing and may perhaps be more indicative of trends within the

UK (four of the articles are by UK-based scholars), but my feeling is that these articles

Ethnomusicology Forum 293

do reveal something about the state of the field and provide tangible evidence of

significant changes since Stock’s characterisation of it in his 1997(a) article.

A Note on Terminology

Perhaps one of the hardest aspects of preparing this special volume was deciding on

an appropriate title, something that involved much discussion and thought. One

might argue that almost every word in the current title is problematic in some way.

Setting aside for the moment questions of disciplinary definition*which are dealt with extensively elsewhere (in particular the chapters in Stobart 2008), and also

briefly above in relation to the challenge posed to disciplinary identities and

boundaries by an ethnomusicology of western art music*I would like to focus here on the word ‘western’. The terms ‘West’ and ‘western’ have come under some scrutiny

in recent years, 3

but are still widely and unproblematically used within much music

scholarship. Clearly, there are a number of issues at stake. The first is the problem of

defining the geographical and cultural scope of these terms; second, they are often

deployed within dominant discourses in a totalising and essentialised manner not

dissimilar to that described by Stokes in relation to ‘a deeply normative idea of

Europeanness in music based on the idealization of an extremely narrow selection of

musical practices (principally Austro-German and nineteenth century)’ (2008:211).

Finally, in the specific case under consideration here, the forces of colonialism and,

more recently, globalisation, have afforded this music a global reach that can no

longer be captured by the term ‘western’. 4

Indeed, like all terminologies, ‘western art

music’ is ideologically loaded, since it claims exclusive ownership of a cultural space

whilst denying the existence of ‘others’ who have been and continue to be central to it

and who are rendered invisible by the dominant discourses. Whatever its historical

legacy, clearly ‘western art music’ is (solely) western no longer. For instance, the

symphony orchestra is probably the most ubiquitous of ensembles globally and

composers trained in art music which has roots in the heritage, aesthetics and

educational models of Europe and North America are to be found across the world.

Indeed, one might argue that with its global reach, this music can be regarded as a

form of ‘world music’. 5

This ‘globality’ has prompted the question as to whether

western art music has become a cultural ‘blank slate’, a music that belongs nowhere.

As Bohlman suggests: ‘So seductive is the encroachment of Western art music

worldwide that one is tempted to wonder whether this is a music beyond specific

cultural meanings and outside particular historical moments’ (1991:254). He goes on

to describe how western art music can acquire new meanings in new contexts by

considering the case of the Yekke (German-speaking Jews in Israel), amongst whom

western art music*specifically within domestic chamber music concerts*has become a marker of ethnic identity. In this context, western art music becomes

framed as a form of ‘ethnic music in Israel’ (1991:264). Shelemay (2001) explores

similar lines of thought in her ethnography of the early music movement in which

she identifies an ‘aesthetic of otherness, a present-day value deeply embedded in the

294 L. Nooshin

early music movement at large’, noting both the interest of many early music

musicians in aspects of ‘world’ music and the tendency to ‘exoticise’ early music as

part of a process of what Laurence Dreyfus has termed ‘defamiliarization’. Shelemay

suggests that ‘one finds a concept of early music performance as collapsing time and

space, transcending arbitrary boundaries, and providing a new context in which old

musical relationships can be re-evaluated’ (2001:18), and she quotes from violinist

David Stepner who describes how ‘a baroque suite is often a way of evoking other

cultures, other countries, other climes, and this is part of the tradition’ (Shelemay

2001:18). In this way:

. . . categories of ‘Western-music’ and ‘non-Western music’ [which] have disin- tegrated, if indeed these rubrics ever had the integrity with which they were invested by scholars. The complex of musical activities, traditions, and musicians I will discuss (termed ‘early music’ by both its practitioners and a wider community internationally) is among those commonly categorized as a subset of Western music. That this categorization once again poses problems is not surprising and will enter in important ways into the discussion below. (2001:4)

The continued use of the ‘western’ adjectival prefix is testimony both to the

tenacity of musical labels and categories, the lack of an obvious alternative (simply

removing ‘western’ would obviously not solve the problem, since this would invoke a

whole range of local art musics), and the fact that, despite its shortcomings, the term

does signify a particular kind of music culture that still tends to look to Europe (and

North America to some extent) for its validation and sustenance. Many ‘non-western’

performers and composers of ‘western’ art music have a complicated relationship

with this repertoire, as discussed by a number of authors including Yara El-Ghadban,

who has examined ‘the postcolonial dimension of Western art music’ (2009:141)

through ethnographic work with a number of composers. In an article published,

significantly, in the journal American Ethnologist, she examines the ‘rituals of Western

art music’ (2009:157) as exemplified through international composer competitions,

focusing on an Argentinian composer based in the Netherlands and a Serb composer

living in Germany. In this context, there is a strong tension for composers ‘between

the urge to contest the hegemony of Western art music and

the desire to be part of and recognized within this musical tradition’ (2009:140).

As El-Ghadban observes, as well as being ‘deeply implicated in the colonial

encounter’ (2009:156), western art music is now transnational and thoroughly

globalised in all of its dimensions: performative, composerly and in its reception.

Based on extensive fieldwork, she concludes that the:

. . . most problematic of the challenges for young composers today [is]: the reappropriation of Western art music by different groups and individuals across the world. That Western art music has crossed ethnic, cultural, and geopolitical boundaries in the context of colonization inevitably raises issues of ‘musical postcoloniality’ that need to be addressed. (El-Ghadban 2009:155)

Ethnomusicology Forum 295

The power relationships embedded within the music tradition are symbolised and

perpetuated by the ways in which composers in international competitions are,

‘consistently identity tagged by competitions that categorize them by country of

origin (thus, underlining dynamics of centre and periphery), even though most live

in the cultural metropolises of Western art music’ (El-Ghadban 2009:154). 6

In what sense, then, might it be possible to re-appropriate the term ‘western art

music’, as El-Ghadban describes for the music itself, such that due recognition is

accorded its plural histories and transnational nature? From a purely pragmatic

perspective, the singular term is useful in that it does at least convey something of

what individual instances of musical expression might comprise, whether in its

instrumentation, performance contexts, audiences, or intellectual grounding. What

needs to be folded into an understanding of the term is how a music that was

originally European has taken on a multitude of forms and meanings globally; and

this applies both to the performance of the Euro-(North)American ‘classical’

repertoire outside Europe and North America, and to the compositional work of

composers from ‘elsewhere’. In asking ‘How did European music become global?

How did European music become European? This is an excellent instance of

ethnomusicology and musicology addressing two questions that almost boil down to

one, and hardly an unimportant one’ (Samson 2008:25), Jim Samson points to the

relational dimension of identity and repertoire formation: European music became

European in relation to the music of its (largely colonial) ‘others’.

Some readers might wonder at the necessity of this discussion, given that the music

and music cultures discussed in the articles which follow are predominantly of

European (or North American) provenance. 7

To this extent, the ‘western classical

music’ of the title of this special volume might appear fairly innocuous. However, it

seemed both appropriate and important to raise these issues and consider the

ramifications beyond the specific articles presented here for an ‘ethnomusicology of

western art music’ in which many of the musics may arguably not be ‘western’ at all.

Towards an Ethnomusicology of Western Art Music

What, then, can the approaches and methodologies of ethnomusicology offer to the

study of western art music? And, conversely, in what ways can ethnomusicology as a

discipline benefit from the study of this music? Shelemay (2001), Stock (2004) and

Ramnarine (2008) are in little doubt as to the potential of an ethnographically-

grounded approach to enrich music studies of all kinds; and Shelemay presents

perhaps the strongest position statement yet on the importance of ethnographic

training for all ethno/musicologists, a statement which is worth quoting at length:

Ethnographies of living traditions thus provide a rich opportunity to enhance understanding of musical life traditionally only viewed through the lens of written historical sources; as such, they can help guide the music historian, bringing into focus transmission processes and musical meanings as situated among real people in real time. Ethnographies of ‘Western musics’ may serve to collapse both

296 L. Nooshin

disciplinary and musical boundaries. For historical musicologists, they could provide a venue in which the assumptions of scholarship can be tested and disputed. For ethnomusicologists, ethnographies of ‘Western music’ provide a lively field in which power relations are largely symmetrical, putting to rest ethical issues of longstanding concern . . . For both music historians and ethnomusicol- ogists, many if not most of whom grew up performing historical European repertoires, ethnographies of ‘Western music’ render the fieldwork process intensely reflexive . . . ethnographic study of living traditions could both enhance the historical musicologists’ appreciation of the workings of a fully contextualized music culture and expose the interaction between music and musicians. Here music historians would do well to draw upon ethnomusicologists’ experience in studying complex urban musical traditions, transnational music movements, and the manner in which music and musicians actively construct their own social, political, and economic worlds. (2001:23�24)

The current issue serves as an endorsement of this view regarding the rich seam of

material which can be mined through the kinds of ethnographic methods (including

participant observation) hitherto only rarely used within musicology. And, interest-

ingly, notwithstanding the self-definitions above, if one broadly categorises the

authors in this volume by means of previous scholarly activity and representation

through musicological societies, journal editorships, conference attendance, and so

on, it becomes evident that the two ‘bona fide’ ethnomusicologists include somewhat

less in the way of direct reporting of musicians’ and others’ discourses than the

‘musicologists’. From ethnography, many things follow. Perhaps the most important

is the multiplicity of perspectives and voices that emerge. As Cottrell observes, what

ethnomusicology can offer to the study of western art music is a methodology that

‘makes room for the voices of all those who consider the music to be theirs . . . an

aggregation of the views of others’ (2004:4) by exploring different readings of (a piece

of ) music which works against any resolution into a single ‘truth’ and the

uncontested ‘singular’ readings of texts. What is of interest from an ethnomusico-

logical perspective, then, is what music means to different people in different places:

. . . it seems unlikely that a performance of, say, Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance marches or Wagner’s Siegfried can mean the same to audiences in London, Dresden, Delhi and Hong Kong, yet the readings of such works provided by musicologists usually assume that they do. (Cottrell 2004:5)

Bohlman has similarly commented on the ways in which, in relation to historical research,

ethnomusicology allows for ‘a multitude of music histories’ (1991:266).

Ethnomusicological approaches may well be enriching to the work of musicologists

in the ways outlined above. But I would also argue that ethnomusicology needs the

study of western art music for the ways in which it definitively disrupts some of the

uncomfortable binaries and unequal power relations that have been part of the field

since its inception, and for the ways in which it requires us to engage with the familiar

‘as if it were not’. 8

I believe that we should wholeheartedly welcome into our midst

scholars such as those contributing to this volume for their enriching presence and

Ethnomusicology Forum 297

the new ideas and approaches that they bring to ethnomusicology. The resulting

blurring of (sub)disciplinary boundaries demonstrated so clearly in the articles that

follow bodes well for the future of music studies, however configured or conceived.

Notes

[1] There are, of course, ongoing debates about the relationship between different areas of music

studies, as discussed in several of the articles in this volume; for instance, see Dobson and Pitts

for discussion of the relationship between ethnomusicology and music psychology.

[2] It is interesting to note that the 1989 article by Bruno Nettl*‘Mozart and the Ethnomusicological Study of Western Culture (An Essay in Four Movements)’, dedicated to

his father, Mozart scholar Paul Nettl*was based on a plenary lecture delivered at another International Council for Traditional Music conference, also held in Austria (in Schladming),

in 1989.

[3] See, for example, the conference ‘Negotiating ‘‘the West’’ Music(ologic)ally’, jointly hosted by

the Musicology Department at Utrecht University, the Netherlands, and the Music

Department at Royal Holloway, University of London, UK, and held at Utrecht University,

11�12 April 2011. [4] For a useful survey of the spread of western classical music globally from the early periods of

missionisation and colonisation, see Cook (forthcoming; Cook also discusses the dissemina-

tion of western popular music, but to a lesser extent). As Cook argues, ‘the so called ‘‘common

practice style’’’ can be regarded as ‘in effect the music of hegemony, as an integral part of the

machinery of empire, an ideological construct whose very name embodies a claim to

universality’. He continues: ‘‘‘Western music’’ refers to a classical tradition now most strongly

rooted in Asia, and a popular tradition that is in reality a global hybrid . . . a music in the

formation of which all continents except Antarctica have played an active role . . . The concept

of ‘‘the West’’ was coined only at the beginning of the last century, and [despite] its ostensibly

geographical definition . . . is probably best thought of as an implicit claim to socio-economic

domination in a world in which power appears to be shifting rapidly to Asia’. For specific case

studies of ‘western’ classical music outside Europe and North America*including East Asia* see El-Ghadban (2009), Everett and Lau (2004), Melvin and Cai (2004), Wint (2012) and

Yoshihari (2007).

[5] Again, see Cook (forthcoming). It can be instructive to examine terminologies in use around

the world. In Iran, for instance, western art music is often referred to as ‘musiqi-e

beynolmelali ’ (international music) or even sometimes ‘musiqi-e jahāni ’ (world music).

[6] See also ‘Crickets in the Postcolony: A Conversation on Music’ for similar issues raised in

discussion between El-Ghadban and South African composer Clare Loveday: www.jwtc.org.

za/the_salon/volume_2/clare_loveday_yara_el_ghadban.htm (accessed 19 December 2011).

[7] Note that the authors have used their terms of choice within each article, whether ‘western art

music’, ‘classical music’ or ‘western European art music’.

[8] It is of course entirely possible for an ethnomusicologist to write about western art music in a

way that does none of these things, and is very ‘musicological’. See, for instance, Jonathan

Stock’s (1997b) study of timbre in a Mozart piano concerto.

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