The Study of Ethnomusicology: Thirty-one Issues and Concepts

New Edition. A landmark in ethnomusicology, expanded and revised.

The first edition of this book, "The Study of Ethnomusicology: Twenty-Nine Issues and Concepts", has become a classic in the field. This revised edition, written twenty-two years after the original, continues the tradition of providing engagingly written analysis that offers the most comprehensive discussion of the discipline available anywhere.

This book looks at the field of ethnomusicology -defined as the study of the world's musics from a comparative perspective, and the study of all music from an anthropological perspective- as a field of research. Bruno Nettl selects thirty-one concepts and issues that have been the subjects of continuing debate by ethnomusicologists, and he adds four entirely new chapters and thoroughly updates the text to reflect new developments and concerns in the field.

Each chapter looks at its subject historically and goes on to make its points with case studies, many taken from Nettl's own field experience. Drawing extensively on his field research in the Middle East, Western urban settings, and North American Indian societies, as well as on a critical survey of the available literature, Nettl advances our understanding of both the diversity and universality of the world's music. This revised edition's four new chapters deal with the doing and writing of musical ethnography, the scholarly study of instruments, aspects of women's music and women in music, and the ethnomusicologist's study of his or her own culture.

CONTENIDO:

Preface

Part 1. The music of the world
1. The harmless drudge: defining ethnomusicology
2. The art of combining tones: the music concept
3. Inspiration and perspiration: the creative process
4. The universal language: universals of music
5. The nonuniversal language: varieties of music
6. Apples and oranges: comparative study
7. I can't say a thing until I've seen the score: transcription
8. In the speech mode: contemplating repertoires
9. The most indefatigable tourists of the world: tunes and their relationships

Part 2. In the field
10. Come back and see me next tuesday: essentials of fieldwork
11. You will never understand this music: insiders and outsiders
12. Hanging on for dear life: archives and preservation
13. I am the greatest: ordinary and exceptional musicians
14. You call that fieldwork? Redefining the "field"
15. What do you think you're doing? The host's perspective

Part 3. In human culture
16. Music and "that complex whole": music in culture
17. The meat-and-potatoes book: musical ethnography
18. Music hath charms: uses and functions
19. In the beginning: on the origins of music
20. The continuity of change: on people changing their music
21. Recorded, printed, written, oral: traditions
22. The basic unit of all culture and civilization: signs and symbols
23. Location, location, location! Interpreting geographic distribution
24. The whys of musical style: determinants

Part 4. In all varieties
25. I've never heard a horse sing: musical taxonomies
26. The creatures of Jubal: instruments
27. How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Teaching and learning
28. I'm a stranger here myself: women's music, women in music
29. Diversity and difference: some minorities
30. A new era: the 1990s and beyond
31. The shape of the story: remarks on history

References
Index