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Posted: June 10, 2009 01:36 am  | |||||
      IRC Nickname: His Lordship Group: Founder Posts: 6029 Member No.: 1 Joined: December 26, 2007 Total Events Attended: 129    | Who understands? _______________________ Both the Harvard Dictionary of Music and Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians offer a simple definition of Musicology: ‘the scholarly study of music.’ But this definition is so encompassing that it sheds little light on the true nature of musicology. The truth is that musicology is defined on numerous levels. At this macro-level, musicology and music research are one and the same. Music research is the comprehensive umbrella term under which many fields of study lie, chief amoung them the discipline of musicology in its narrower sense. Musicology in its narrower sense is often seen as distinct from other disciplines, including ethnomusicology and music psychology. Also, the term musicology traditionally denotes a scientific methodology to music, disregarding the fact that the study of music covers much more than scientific method. Perhaps for these reasons it is more fitting to use the term music research, which avoids the inconsistencies that have attached themselves to the word musicology. To go even further, music research need not be scholarly at all. Perhaps it is sufficient to state that music research involves a more general investigation into any musical field. Music research is as old as music itself, and indeed, inseparable. As mankind’s predecessors began to understand the nature of harmonics, and design instruments that could resonate with greater power and purity, they had already begun undertaking extensive music research. Musicology, on the other hand, is a relatively recent discipline. Grove identifies the year 1863 as the year in which musicology became an entity in itself, attributing this change to Chrysander, who ‘contended that musicology should be treated as a science in its own right, on a level equal to that of other scientific disciplines.’ This somewhat modernist view of musicology as a science was a very conducive environment for the two philosophies of formalism and positivism. Guido Adler was one of the first proponents of this aesthetic, and outlined in 1885, in his article ‘Umfang, Methode und Ziel der Musikwissenschaft’, a simple dichotomy for all musicological practises. The first field of musicology was music history, in which musicologists would examine historical musical literature and musicians and classify music into epochs and movements. The second of Adler’s distinctions was the systematic field, which involved musical (largely harmonic) analysis, aesthetics and psychology, music education, and musicologie, which Duckles claims is roughly equivalent to ethnomusicology. Adler’s distinction formed the basis of musicological practises over the next century. In 1969, Hans Tischler attempted to outline five practices, which he called ‘exhaustive and all-embracing’. These five approaches are historical, analytical, applied, philosophical, and sociological. Of these five, the first corresponds directly to Adler’s historical field, while the following four are simply expansions of Adler’s second field of musicological study. The early 1980’s marked a watershed period for musicology. It was at this time that postmodernism took root in musicological studies, and ‘new musicology’ as at the centre of this change. New musicology almost entirely abandoned formalism, positivism and aesthetic autonomy, in favour of a contextual examination of music. Culture and the humanities abruptly returned to the focus of studies in music, and like musical postmodernism, musicological postmodernism seems to be defined as the negative of modernism, rejecting those aesthetics that preceded it. As Giles Hooper remarks, ‘a ‘modernist musicology’ is regularly evoked in order to distinguish ‘that which we did’ from ‘that which we do now’… ‘ In addition to a newer aesthetic with a focus on culture and context, there was an increasing readiness to study the music of non-Western cultures, which was previously stifled by formalist and positivist attitudes. As one would expect, ethnomusicology erupted onto the musicology scene. This was first expressed by Kerman in Musicology (1985). The result of all these changes was that musicology became closely integrated with mainstream humanities. Of course, new musicology is not without its downfalls. Hooper is quick to argue: In the pursuit of new methods of musical interpretation and understanding and also in reflecting on the nature of disciplinary practice itself, musicology has at times proved somewhat precipitous in its adoption and ready acceptance of certain ‘postmodern’ doctrines - often to the detriment of other equally or potentially more productive lines of thought. It seems that in the pursuit of radical change, new and postmodern musicology fiercely rejects alternative means to understanding music, such as the merits of formalism. Such is the hypocrisy of postmodernism. On one hand it shuns the way in which modernist thought centres around one or few aesthetics (namely formalism, positivism and aesthetic autonomy) on the basis that it does not encompass a broad understanding of music and on the other, postmodernists are quick to reject other disciplines that offer alternative understandings of music. In the 21st century, musicology often refers to the scholarly study of music, but it also refers to the specific discipline of historical musicology. It seems as though most scholars to claim to be musicologists are learned in Western art music, and a distinction must be made between musicologists, ethnomusicologists and music theorists. Indeed, historical musicology comprises the largest portion of the study of music, and is traditionally concerned with the literature of musical history. It is against this discipline that new musicology reacts. Susan McClary, one advocate of the new musicology movement, writes that musicology ‘fastidiously declares issues of musical signification off-limits to those engaged in legitimate scholarship.’ Despite this claim, there is no real evidence to show that any individual apart from Hanslick has ever believed this. This aside, new musicology resulted in an expansion of a cultural and contextual understanding of music history. The last few decades have also witnessed a remarkable change in the general attitudes of musicologists worldwide. Postmodernist thought has shifted the emphasis from music as an art to music as a process. The act of music-making and its cultural context takes increasing precedence over music as an idle entity. The body and minds of performers and listeners are attracting more attention, though this is not to say that composers have been neglected in recent musicological practises. Grove makes of this change, ‘Sometimes the goal of [a musicologist’s] inquiry is not so much to increase knowledge of music as to restructure experience of it.’ Thus, the scholarly study of performance has become popular in recent years. Authentic period performance is one of the major advancements in recent musicology. The benefits of historically informed performance are numerous. An awareness of the instruments and their historical tones allows the music to achieve greater transparency of texture, and balance is corrected, while many listeners appreciate the timbre of period instruments. The greatest shortcoming of musicology in its narrow sense is that it is somewhat ethnocentric. Of course, there have been great advancements in the field of ethnomusicology, but this is often seen as distinct from musicology. The Harvard Dictionary of Music states that it is the object of musicology to ultimately be ethnomusicology, which ‘is concerned with music in its human context.’ This resonates with the aesthetics of new musicology, although new musicologists have tented to limit their studies to the Western canon. While Western art music does feature as part of ethnomusicological studies, it is only examined in its context of Western culture. Ethnomusicologists, in general are more involved in field work, and use concepts developed by anthropology. Even if we account for ethnomusicology, music research in general has rather considerable gaps in its coverage, since it does not account for related fields of work that may not involve music, such as acoustics, physiology, and neurosciences. We come to the issue of interconnectedness. At what point does a field of work stop being music research? One classic example of a borderline case is the Alexander technique, which was developed outside music, and yet it applies strongly to performance practice. The Alexander technique is now studied as a musical phenomenon, however it was conceived with no allusion to music whatsoever. There is no real black and white dichotomy between music and the other arts and sciences, and therefore no true limit to music research. Imposing such a limit would be detrimental to the advancement of musical understanding. It is my own opinion that music should not be studied only in context of culture, but in context of several sciences as well. The other great shortcoming of musicology is that, on the whole, it fails to address popular music. The work of Richard Middleton remains exceptional. Middleton asserts in his writing that in general, ‘works of musicology, theoretical or historical, act as though popular music did not exist.’ In the way that musicology is ethnocentric, it can also be seen as having notational centricity; privileging musical scores. The Western canon receives biased attention. The rise in the popularity of ethnomusicology has been under way for several decades, but popular music within the Western culture is only just receiving the attention of musical scholars. Even still, small pockets of music have remained untouched – film music is still a largely malnourished area, as it has been for the last century. It seems almost as if ethnomusicology has swung the pendulum toward non-Western music in such a way that those areas of Western music that have not yet been explored are of secondary importance to the music of non-Western cultures. Contemplating now on the purpose of music research and its effects on music itself, we can see a clear trend. Wherever music has been treated as an object (for example, the historical study of composers), there has been a very limited application of the knowledge to the music. Following the onset of postmodernist thought, where music was no longer an object but an experience, musicology has enjoyed a much more interactive relationship with music. Historically informed performance, as earlier mentioned, is one of the many fruits of recent musicological studies. The newly developed field of music psychology has immense practical applications. Music therapy, although still in its infancy, is attracting growing attention as scientifically supported means of alleviating (and in some cases curing entirely) illness or psychological disorders. There is a preconception that musicology is concerned with music as a humanity. In recent years, the study of music as an experience rather than an object has subjected music to increasing scientific scrutiny. In this transition, the term music research may be more appropriate. Music research also differs from musicology in the way it encompasses a myriad of studies which lie outside scholarly practise. It seems that the relationship between music research and musicology is such that music research ‘fills in the gaps’ left by musicology. On further contemplation, almost all of the great advances in musical history lie outside scholarly practise; the invention and modification of instruments such as the piano, the advancement and final collapse of tonal harmony, and even notation are all products of rigorous experimentation and indeed, research on part of composers, inventors and musicians of all disciplines. However none of these advancements in music resulted from scholarly investigation. It seems that musicology looks at music retrospectively, or at least with some dispassion. Music research on the other hand, has been intertwined with music-making since the very origins of music itself. This could very well change in the near future. As has been noted, the object of the postmodernist musicologist is no longer to be an idle observer of music. Musicology may yet play an active part in reshaping mankind’s musical experience. --------------------  | ||||
Posted: June 10, 2009 01:47 am | |||||
| IRC Nickname: [Randy] Group: Raid Leader Posts: 5065 Member No.: 16 Joined: December 29, 2007 Total Events Attended: 499 | tl;dr;lol;gtfo --------------------   | ||||
Posted: June 10, 2009 01:50 am | |||||
 IRC Nickname: Darth Group: Ex-Member Posts: 4601 Member No.: 838 Joined: June 12, 2008 Total Events Attended: 558 | 42. --------------------  | ||||
Posted: June 10, 2009 03:19 am | |||||
 IRC Nickname: Hyperion Group: Ex-Member Posts: 1636 Member No.: 978 Joined: June 23, 2008 Total Events Attended: 141 | I got about 8 paragraph's in then just decided to skip to the end to see who dies. P.S this is what the alphabet would look like if Q and R were removed. --------------------    Dragon boots:29 Whips:2 | ||||
Posted: June 10, 2009 07:27 pm | |||||
 IRC Nickname: Angus0000 Group: Emeritus Posts: 705 Member No.: 572 Joined: May 3, 2008 Total Events Attended: 128 | What was your prompt for this? --------------------  | ||||
Posted: June 11, 2009 01:02 pm | |||||
 IRC Nickname: Vephy Group: Elite Guardian Posts: 6186 Member No.: 813 Joined: June 10, 2008 Total Events Attended: 478 | ZZZZZZzzzzzzzzz hmmph ummm mmm oo-OH! ..................... Good bed time story thank you. --------------------   | ||||
Posted: June 11, 2009 01:13 pm | |||||
 IRC Nickname: Havochaha Group: Ex-Member Posts: 2257 Member No.: 106 Joined: January 5, 2008 Total Events Attended: 113 | yes -------------------- Havochaha Perm Banned Oct 1st 2009 Havochaha Unbanned February 13th 2011  http://www.erepublik.com/en/referrer/Omar+Dandan How to Make 10m an Hour | ||||
Posted: June 11, 2009 01:14 pm | |||||
| IRC Nickname: Vephy Group: Elite Guardian Posts: 6186 Member No.: 813 Joined: June 10, 2008 Total Events Attended: 478 |
Troll -------------------- | ||||
Posted: June 11, 2009 06:24 pm | |||||
| IRC Nickname: Havochaha Group: Ex-Member Posts: 2257 Member No.: 106 Joined: January 5, 2008 Total Events Attended: 113 |
Trolls dont feed them -------------------- Havochaha Perm Banned Oct 1st 2009 Havochaha Unbanned February 13th 2011 http://www.erepublik.com/en/referrer/Omar+Dandan How to Make 10m an Hour | ||||
Posted: June 26, 2009 07:03 pm | |||||
 IRC Nickname: Owennnn Group: Emeritus Posts: 1447 Member No.: 37 Joined: December 30, 2007 Total Events Attended: 55 | Good read, would like to have known more about the studies you mention, might wiki them. -------------------- | ||||
Posted: June 27, 2009 08:43 am | |||||
 IRC Nickname: ThisIsUnique Group: Ex-Member Posts: 1664 Member No.: 1417 Joined: October 30, 2008 Total Events Attended: 141 | wow gene naic text didnt read tho  my eyes hurt from looking at it --------------------   | ||||
My Essay