Ethno-musicology
Several items of interest strike me in the first few issues of Ethnomusicology. The first is simply the title of the publication, which, on the first issue, is “Ethno-musicology”. The hyphen may not seem like a big deal, but that simple separation really drove home the meaning of the word for me, raising thoughts of the debates over the validity of that word as a name for the field that we have read about elsewhere.
The first issue of Ethnomusicology is notable for it’s tone, which is very positive, hopeful., and informal. This publication, and the associated society, are just trying to get off the ground, and the people organizing it are trying to get everyone involved. It has more of the feel of a social publication than an academic one in the early issues—it reports ethnomusicologists’ current status, projects, and goals more in the “where are they now?” style of an alumni magazine than in a detailed, detached academic matter. This is understandable, of course, as at this point they were just trying to establish some sort of scholarly community where there was none.
The first “notes and news” anecdote of the first issue shows the status of fieldwork technology of the time: a recently returned scholar who spent a year doing research in Africa has all of eight hours of music recorded. With today’s technology, a fieldworker could easily amass that much in a handful of days!
The friendly, social atmosphere present in the early issues of the magazine does not last into the present, as the journal achieved a more standard academic format, in which a handful of lengthy articles are published each issue along with some book reviews. This is not very surprising—the chummy attitude of the early issues was the logical approach at the time, when it was more like a newsletter than a journal, but that format was able to change as the society grew.
Another interesting facet of the journal is how its editors take an international focus from early on. They emphasize that the journal will exist “on an international basis”. This is interesting, as the society arose (to an extent) from the ashes of the American Society for Comparitive Musicology, the treasury of which funded the first few issues of this new journal. This journal, however, drops the word “American” from its title, seeking an international status from the start. Although many of the organizers seem to be American, it is clear that they want to form a legitimate international community so that scholars from different nations can share ideas and research. This is evident even from the first few issues, in which a German scholar writes to inform the readers of the state of ethnomusicological education in German universities, and the editors publish several letters in untranslated French. A certain international attitude and level of understanding is expected of the readers of this journal.
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2 comments:
It was interesting that you noted the untranslated French. In the first few issues of Ethnomusicology, there was only English, French, and German - which hardly constitutes the international community the authors were going for. As the publication grows, however, you see mostly English. In a way, the publication becomes less international, yet more accessible (to English speakers). However, I'm sure the publication is translated into many languages at present.
So many people wrote about the title "ethno-musicology" and its change to our modern "ethnomusicology" without the hyphen! I think your observations about the languages used in the original journals and the trend toward English over the years is an interesting way of analyzing the journal. I think we were all able to see in reading older issues of Ethnomusicology the ways in which the field itself has changed in the past 50 years.
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