Ethnomusicology (2)

Short Description of Ethnomusicology

By Edi Nasution

J. WalkerFewkes, a field recorder in 1890, later led the Bureau Ethnology America in Washington. The office also encourages recording field. Another center of activity is similar to the ‘Field Museum of Natural History’ in Chicago, ‘Peabody Huseum’ at Harvard University, ‘Pennsylvania Museum’ in Philadelphia, and the University of California at Berkeley.²⁶

A musical-ethnographic commission was established at the University of Moscow in 1901. Focus on making it work as a recording and transcription of scientific knowledge, as well as the study of the Russian folk song and traditional music of other countries in the Russian Empire. Recording expeditions also carried out in Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, and among the Mongols, Yakut and other communities. Meanwhile, Vienna and Berlin Archive provides recorded music recorded while on an expedition to Africa, Asia and America. International relations among the experts in ethnomusicology maintained exclusively by Germans, and also by Comprative Musicology section of the International MusicalSociety, chaired by Hornbostel who participated in meetings in Vienna (1909), London (1911) and Paris (1914).²⁷

Activity Archive Vienna in 1918 after a little setback, that when it was developed in Berlin. In the USA, specifically influenced by Frans Boas (Columbia Univeristy) and Edward Sapir (Yale University), where knowledge is more widely studied ethnomusicology is contained in the American - Indians and Eskimos (eg by Densmore, Helen H. Roberts, and George Herzog). Marius Barbeau, the Canadian national museums in Ottawa, influenced by Frans Boas, in which Francis - Canadian folk music is learned has increased the amount of work. In Poland, two centers were developed for extractive recording folk music of Poland, while in Poznan led by Kaminski and in Warsaw led by Pulikowski, both of which are intentionally destroyed during World War II.²⁸

Ethnomusicology as a growing discipline of science after World War II from the ‘dust’ of Comparative Musicology, but now the other because of the dynamic developments that have played a major rule in the resurrection. For scholars of Western industrialized countries , small parts of the world can appear more quickly and can be visited; sound recording, movie making, and also rapidly emerging repairs but the cost is more expensive than the previous.²⁹

During the few experts musicology lose patience with their helpers in the study of art history of Western music, which is based on written records. At the same time, some anthropologists have felt compelled to learn music as much as possible in the context of community life, and as a process (not cut and simplified, but it never changes). ‘Society For Ethnomusicology’, founded in 1955, provides an opportunity for enthusiasts - enthusiasts such discussion, and together with others, as well as publishing the journal Ethnomusicology. Conference-annual conference and the ‘Journal of the International Folk Music Council’ (founded in 1949) provides an important forum, especially for workers experts in ethnomusicology to other subjects. A small portion of students from schools Comparative Musicology in Berlin, who immigrated to the United States, plays an important role in the development of field studies in the Western Hemisphere, especially George Herzog, Nieczyslaw Kolinski, and later Klaus P. Wachsmann. While ethnomusicologist Charles Seeger as an American who has a strong influence on the development of ethnomusicology in the USA.³⁰

Currently owned collection of ethnomusicology had enough, the material obtained from various sources, especially since World War II, in which advances in technology play an important role and so widespread its use. One of them is ‘portabletape-recorder’, which is commercially available in parts of the Western world around the 1950s. Quite a lot of variations that can be used, where to operate using only a few pieces and readily available batteries. Then came the possibility to synchronize ‘movie camera’ and recording equipment. Polaroid camera soon appeared, and in the 1970s video tape has been used as a means of recording multi-chanel.³¹

Before 1945 Hungary already has a gramaphone cylinder and an extensive collection and after the war found a number of collections of recorded music with a complete review of these types of songs, including songs lamen. In Poland, a systematic national collection carried out in the 1950s, totaling more than 65,000 tapes form of folk song and instrumental music. In Slovakia 110,000 songs and instrumental sounds collected in 1972, of which 80 % dikoleksikan after 1950, which recorded more than 50,000 sound. Bulgaria recorded more than 100,000 songs and instrumental sounds in the field between 1955 and 1969. In Japan, ‘Japan Broadcasting Corporation’ and others, using good equipment once, with a major recording program of traditional music, including folk music.³²

In Western industrialized countries, ethnomusicology have easier opportunities to develop the equipment, but they tend to work individually in a strange area (foreign) for them and work within the constraints of time is relative. They also tend to learn the culture of a community deeply, but it is not easy to do because of the culture under study was not so well known, but is particularly important. In North American culture is usually studied North Indian or South-America or Africa or Asia tribal culture, or music high fineness Asia or the Middle East. British experts tend to study the African ethnomusicology, Francis (in addition to experts in the folk music of Francis) Francis - farmers in the colonies in Africa and Brazil, Nepal, South East Asia and the Pacific islands. West Germany worked in Turkey, Greece, Rwanda, Sudan and the classical music of India. In the mid -1970s systematically collected music that Eskimos in Alaska, and in Canada, namely in the ‘Museum of Man’ in Ottawa, the music of ethnic groups recorded. It should be noted that although the traditional music of Asia, Africa and America intensively collected, but it turns out that all is still not well perceived enough.³³

Recording music is also accompanied by photographs, films and interviews (always recorded anyway) with the player and the listener or viewer. Dance and rituals studied using actively documentary. Labanotasi increasing function as it is used for dance notation. The instruments were collected, and the performing arts filmmaking developed. Objectivity and accuracy are great , and many more dokmentasi has been successfully created. Term ‘documentation’ is used here indicates the act of collecting traditional music available in the field , such as documents, which are available in printed form for recording music collection or gramafone, also experienced spectacular progress since 1950.³⁴

Documentationof traditional music recordings in a long-play is an indispensable equipment for teaching and learning in ethnomusicology, which is specifically used fully in the delivery characteristics of the performing arts that can not be notated, such as vocal quality and pitch variation. For music recording can be relatively short portrait style variations of songs, melodies, instruments and stuff others.³⁵

Among the documentation is pretty good recording broadcast by non- commercial institutes, such as the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, Japan Broadcasting Corporation, which is sponsored by the Musee de I 'Homme in Paris, a series broadcast by the Musee Royale de l' Afrique Centrale in Beruuren, Belgium, and broadcast by Lur Völkerkunde Museum in West Berlin. Reference number of the series was also made ​​by Hugh Tracey' s lI'1 The Sound of Africa, 210 long-play music and songs of RD from the center, east and North Africa. Some of the recordings are pretty good documentation also broadcast commercial. There is material (ethnomusicology recordings for the entire world) is the latest but not so good to be a reference, while recording the interview and informed article in the special journal.³⁶

Multi-volume collection is quite comprehensive folk music of one of the nation has been published. This can be seen in some articles the folk music of Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Japan, Poland, Norway, Czechoslovia (Slovakia), TTSSR (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) and Yugoslavia (Slovenia). Notation was made by transcribing music recordings , including the player's name, place, time recording, etc.; indication of the variation and previous records written in a book (Greece, Poland). For musical instruments, as well as multi-series along the projected volumes, ranging demonstrated by Hanbuch der europaishen/Folksmusik Instrumente in 1967 (edited by Fimsheimer and Stockmaun). Two volumes, namely musical instrument of Hungary, Bohemia and Loravia, published by each organization according to some principles, which had been buried for use as a comparative science.³⁷

Transcription of traditional music into a visual notation valued as an essential task of the expert ethnomusicology. Vast quantity of raw material available for the study of ethnomusicology; recordings have good technical quality with extensive contextual material anyway. But music can only be compared or analyzed with considerable difficulty when determining a sound to be documented on a cylinder, disc, or tape. To begin the analysis needs to be listed in any record, comparing the privilege of some music, at least as an indispensable visual reprensentation.38

However, poor transcription will result in the conversion into musical notation. First, transcription is subjective; hearing is not perceived or that all registers are be demonstrated, is the same when a recording is played repeatedly, and sharpness of perception described a individual who was varied as well. Secondly, the conventional Western notation is not created for the music of oraltradition (see Seeger 1958). Third, the visual notation was not planned in advance, including Western notation with “special signs for pitch-pitch non - conventional and others, can bring (deliver) the original sound quality, especially the behavior of the vocal style", instrumental, and so on. ³⁹

For a while, it can be satisfied by saying that the problem can now be overcome with the use of electro-acoustic instruments to the completion of the work of scholars, such as oscillograf, sonagraf and melograf. Melograf model 'C' from Charles Darwin to analyze and demonstrate (and provide a permanent chart of a particular recording) music for 30 minutes continuously. The tool is an electronic sound analyzer tool that can generate a graph footage filmed from the pitch, amplitude and spectrum simultaneously (see melograf). At the University of California at Los Angeles, melograf 'C' model can be used to study (for example) and the vocal pitch ambitus voice, vocal vibrato and vocal ornamentation in a specific musical tradition. Valuable research can be done using sonagraf and other instruments on phonogramm - Archiv in Vienna. Variations instrument resembling melograf Seeger used and exploited in Budapest, Bratislava, Tallium and Berlin, and the pioneer work with the same equipment and taken to Norway, Sweden and Israel.⁴⁰

Although these instruments objective, but there is also a shortage imformasi available, and the types of materials that can not be described certain. On the one hand, the equipment can provide imformasi more than necessary, but on the other hand, only the melodic solos that can be analyzed by melograf 'C' model. Polyphonymusic, instrumental ensemble, two people who previously could not sing along dikendalikan.⁴¹

A fundamental issue is to balance the subjectivity and human hearing (one of the two can be refined) with the objectivity of an electronic instrument, which felt more objective than the hearing and also felt that the hearing can not be marked. Of course transcription should be based on what is perceived by hearing , but keep rocks from the instrument for certain things such as pitch-pitch that does not remain where we are hearing are not trained to know him.⁴²

This leads us to the next basic problem: pentranskripsi where the target is to denote what is essential to have a specific reason. How does one know which is which (which is essential) ? In connection with this, which is to choose between a very detailed notation similar framework and notation (both used by Bartok for Serbo-Croatian folk song, 1951). It is associated with a form of folk music of Europe, where the researchers know a tradition of music very well, talking about the language, and have extensive material for comparison with the tradition, in which a norm can be determined in advance on the same material, is an oral tradition based on variations (see Soibieska 1964). It becomes more difficult when a worker outside with researching an unfamiliar culture, to a limited period, the collection is only performed on a portion of the musicaltradition and in no way can make sure all the performances are natural and what is collected is level representative music. Difficulties that arise later when the penstranskripsi of footage not participate in the fieldwork. In this case, it can only denote what he heard from recordings, so that he may not know the players or singers that convey meaning. When the researchers were unable to determine a ‘hierarchy of musical value’ (List, 1963) from imforman- imforman in the culture, he tried to find a relatively important thing: like the style variations on the basic elements of the frequency of daily events and of their stability somewhat varied. Furthermore, it may be ‘safe’ when treated with a material that is relatively unusual to make detailed transcription.⁴³

Bruno Nettl (1975) once said that the transcript had not previously considered important as it is now formally considered. Past consideration of all the pros and cons discussed above (see especially Stockmann 1966 and MGG), then some visual representation of traditional music required for analysis and comparison. And after a decade or more they work with sonagraf, melograf and other instruments , professional experts tend ethnomusicology like an adaptation of the conventional notation to use graphs. Although the current system is not so perfect, but a purpose still fully consideration.⁴⁴

The entire ethnomusicology expert, whether dedicated to the study of music in culture or not, in the end needed to describe the music they are learning, try to find the underlying characteristics, and in some case compare it with the other, might put it together, inter- cultures. Among the elements studied in the solo vocal music is melodic range, cantur, interval and ornamentation; meter and rhythm; tempo; scales (modes) and the final tone, as well as the vocal style. Part singing and instrumental music also tested and added to the relation between its parts, patterns and vertical intervals kadensa patterns. Learn musical instruments, which includes pitch-pitch that also can be played (such as pressing studying old museum) but, upon the whole, the music itself is traditionally played with instruments. Music and dance are also analyzed as above, but must be connected to the dance itself. The same truth with music that is part of a ritual.⁴⁵

In Europe, the experts in Central and Eastern Europe since 1964 worked at theInternational Folk Music Council Study Group in terms of  ‘analysis’ and ‘systematic folk music’ with the training methods for the classification of folk music melodies, have used variations varlasi arkaif nationally, with a view they may be able to apply to one type of international catalogs. At the same time they develop methods of complex analysis and coordinate experiments with the use of methods of  ‘data-processing electronics’ (this is not the materials used for folk music in Budapest, Prague, Bratislava, Berlin, and Scandinavia). The end goal is probably to make a systematic comparison of the entire folk music of Europe after overcoming some hurdle.⁴⁶

In addition to the group was looking for an international solution to the public interest, they are also interested in the comparative study. In North America at the Museum of Man in Canada, the computer is used to perform analysis of an extensive collection of folk music was but this is an extraordinary activity in the Western Hemisphere, although Benjamin Suchoff active in the development of computer systems for music index tradisional.⁴⁷ For practical purposes it can be said that most of the experts in ethnomusicology deal with three types of music. The first category, which is based on the characteristics of the field and its history, is the music of non-literary society. Non-language literature community does not develop a system of reading and writing. Sachs (1962) incorporate these objects - as is done by some other scholars - because he realized that the presence or absence of the ‘illiteracy’ is not a determining factor for the presence of a large difference between the cultural types. In this case, the category of the non-literature including Indian-American, Negro-African, Australian-Aboriginal, and some tribal communities throughout Asia. Cultures are mostly called ‘primitive’, but the term ‘primitive’ can not be used due to the use of the term means that they covered the early stages in human history (which can not be proven as long as the culture), or if said to be “very simple people" is actually inaccurate as well as some non-literary cultures have very complex social systems, elaborate rituals, art, such as musical style and music are closely related to customs them. In addition, members of the community who have a non-literary master world languages ​​like English (which are individual numbers continue to rise) can be understood if they are not happy to be connected to the ‘primitive’ in the literature. Furthermore, the term ‘primitive’ gradually disappeared from the literature of anthropology and ethnomusicology, the dam was replaced with the use of the term ‘praliteratur’ , but this term is still associated with ‘illiteracy’. Term ‘tribal’ is also used , but it is difficult to interpret because it meant a kind of social and political structures that are very specific, while not all cultures have the non-literature. If a tribal culture does not have an organization, perhaps the music is included in the discussion of the material, where shortcomings simply because it does not have a written tradition. Likewise, culture defines ‘tribal’ remains difficult. Other terms, namely ‘non-literature’, though drab, but it seems to be compared with a shorter term and life-like ‘tribal’and ‘primitive’, which seems descriptive of a group of people who intimately linked to the field of ethnomusicology. ⁴⁸

The second category of music that is always included in the scope of ethnomusicology is the high culture of North Africa, Asia (China, Japan, Java, Bali, Southwest Asia, India, Iran), and the Arabic speaking countries. There is a culture that has a musical analogy trained in many respects to that of Western civilization, characterized by a real hassle in style, by the development of a level of professional musicians, as well as music theory and notation. The owner culture that for centuries have written about music that might make an approach to the same history as the history of European music. But actually none of those countries that can use a similar system of musical notation and explicit complex with the West, and the music lives in urban areas, mostly in the field of oral tradition in which individuals learn music by listening and tradition taught without notation. Furthermore always difficult to portray a clear boundary between musical cultures of non-oriental literature and high culture. Last Kunst said ‘traditional’ (Kunst 1959:1), and ethnomusicologyliterature, it yourselves without deepening towards a classification, a simple way to broad areas of culture such as ‘oriental’ is. ⁴⁹

The third category - and this one is not universally accepted by experts ethnomusicology - is ‘folk music’ , which may be defined as an oral tradition of music that is in the areas dominated by high culture. Furthermore, not only Western civilization but also Asian countries like Japan China, and others, have folk music, but of course that in the Western world it plays a very large role in the research. Folk music is generally distinguished from non-public music literature by the approach of the shape change of the material and trained by an enormous influence. It is distinguished from a trained music or urban or 'fine art music' by reliance on oral tradition better than the written notation, and, generally, by its existence outside institutions such as churches, schools or government. And it was accepted as part of ethnomusicology by some scholars as the style - the style, though connected to the western art music, is sufficient to allow the difference was classed among diversity, manifestations of ‘exotic music' which is the core form of ethnomusicology.⁵⁰ [EN]