mrsmith@rice-chex.ai.mit.edu (Mr. P. H. Smith) (08/19/90)
Perhaps this will show y'all just what I mean by "musicological analysis" and maybe even convey to you what I think is the relationship between musicology and the other branches of musical research. Please remember that the categories of musicological analysis I proposed are not intended to encompass all musical research. That's why I call them categories of *musicological* analysis. Musicology is more confused than all-encompassing, as you'll see (but I tried to allow it to be as broad as possible). Musicology is most frequently defined quite broadly as the study of music, as the term implies. Often musicological study is distinguished from the practice of music, following a very old tradition going back to Antiquity. The Oxford Dictionary of Music (1985) says: "Musicology -- Music scholarship. A 20th-cent. word taken into the Eng. language (from the Fr. Musicologie), but the Ger. term Musikwissenschaft was coined by J. B. Logier in 1827. It may be said to cover all study of musicother than that directed to proficiency in perf. or comp. Thus, a musicologist is one who is a specialist in some mus. study." The breadth of the field is also expressed in this definition, which lists the following as the domains of musicological research: "acoustics, physiology of the v[oice], ear and hand; psychology of aesthetics, and of music appreciation and education; ethnology so far as it bears on music; rhythm and metrics; modes and scales; the principles and development of instrs.; orchestration; form; theories of harmony; the history of mus.; the bibliography of mus.; terminology -- and so forth." What I dislike about this definition of musicology is that there is no attempt to provide a framework for the various divisions. Under what circumstances, for example, is the physiology of the hand a musicological problem? It seems that what counts as a musicological problem is *anything* anyone wants, and with no logical connection to any of the other divisions. The "and so forth" merely underscores this lack of organization. The Harvard Dictionary of Music (1986) clearly shows the confusion *among musicologists* about just what musicology is. First, musicology is defined in the broadest possible terms: "Musicology -- The scholarly study of music, wherever it is found historically or geographically. The methods of musicology are any that prove fruitful with respect to the particular subject of study." According to the Harvard Dictionary even the methods of musicology are boundless. However, there is a contradiction between the definition of musicology and the actual domain of musicological investigation. Musicology as it is practiced is the study of a select number of musical works which are judged to be aesthetically significant and which have European progeny. The Harvard Dictionary says as much as its definition continues: "The great majority of scholars who describe themselves as musicologists (as distinct from ethnomusicologists) are students of Western art music." But, lest you think I am naive to rely on dictionary definitions to define a field which is dynamic and in flux, let's contrast these definitions of musicology with the actual content of the dictionaries in which they appear. Then we can see, statistically, just what musicologists think their field is concerned with. As expected, in the Oxford Dictionary of Music, for example, the statistical breakdown of entries by nationality and historical periiod shows that musicology is concerned with Western European music of the past 200 years more than anything else. The breakdown is - 65% = USA and Western Europe. 35% = All the other countries of the world. Chronologically, the breakdown is - 0-1000 AD = 0.5% 1000-1400 = 0.67 1400-1600 = 5.6 1600-1780 = 16.5 1780-1910 = 27 1910-1985 = 49.2 (I arrived at these by tabulating the entries on every tenth page in the dictionary.) These dictionaries, if taken as collections of what is considered important for musicology, hardly approach the breadth suggested in their definitions of musicology. This is fine with me. I just would like to articulate and organize the *actual* field of musicological research in a logical way. I don't think anyone has done that since Guido Adler defined the field way back in the 1880s. The world of music has changed a lot since then. The Four Main Divisions of All Musical Research Okay, here is what I think are the broadest possible categories of musical research and the place musicology seems to have among them. These are the four big honeys of music specialists (I know there are others, but they are trivial): 1. The largest and most comprehensive domain must be psycho-acoustics. This field is concerned with the interaction of sound with any bio-physical organism. Naturally, psycho-acoustics includes all sounds (language, noise, music, etc.) whether they are real or imagined. It is by no means only concerned with music, no matter how it may be defined. Moreover, psycho-acoustics is not limited to the study of human beings. It can just as easily address itself to frogs, lizards, and trees -- and often does! As the term psycho-acoustics suggests, the methods of psychology and acoustics predominate in this field. In psycho-acoustics any sound, whether it is part of the most sublime music or the most excruciating noise, can be the object of study. This is not to suggest that musicological research is a subset of psycho-acoustics in a methodological sense. We are simply describing the domains of musical research. And, since psycho-acoustics treats issues in music and "non"-music its domain is necessarily larger than whatever the domain of musicology might be. 2. Nearly as important, and nearly as all-encompassing as psycho-acoustics is an area which we may call (with some regrets) "musico-paideics" That is, the educatory process of music, usually understood in its political, sexological, and moral sense. (Perhaps the Greek term "Euterpics" would have covered the same concepts.) Anyway, music education, in its most generic aspect around the world, is little concerned with musicological analysis and not at all with comparative analysis. Mostly, one learns the Christmas carols, the proper dance steps for a marriage or similar public event, the national anthem, and the like. This second branch of the field of musical study includes all general musical education (the effect of music on the citizens of a state, the use of music in schools and in other sociological contexts, the pedagogics of music, etc.). 3. Today a *vitally* important area of musical research is the "comparative" analysis of just these confusing customs, habits and sometimes xenophobic practices. We call this area "ethnomusicology," at least in English, and at least since the first half of this century. I think the term itself is grandiose and silly, but again, this field of research is extremely important, no matter what you call it. 4. This brings us finally to the morphemic analysis of a selected number of acknowledged, musically venerate works in whatever culture. As a meaningful aspect of musical study this is frequently only called analysis, but it is also sometimes called text analysis, or musicological analysis. This aspect is perhaps the most important component of scholarly musical study as it exists in Western universities. I think that even when musicologists write about "reception" and "historical influences" they have in mind the reception of *famous Western art music* and the historical influence on same. I hope all this helps clarify my thoughts to y'all. Paul Smith mrsmith@ai.mit.edu