Towards a Social History of Musicological Technique

Abstract

Interest in operation of styles in their social contexts is not merely concern of musicologists during past century but extends across substantial body of European and Asian literature from Middle Ages to present. At times, however, ethnomusicologists have discussed problems of analytic method in rather parochial manner, without sufficient consideration of underlying principles of our discipline in broad, comparative context. The present essay seeks to explore general implications of few problems which have concerned author over past fifteen years, first as pianist and student of few European and Asian literatures, later as scholar examining interaction of diverse musics in West Asia, and more recently as teacher of eartraining and musicology. The papers of Steve Feld and Marcia Herndon recently published in this journal (1974) have provided stimulus for outlining ideas presented here, which are offered solely for purpose of eliciting criticism and further discussion of pertinent problems.1 As one of central assumptions underlying his structuralist method, Claude Levi-Strauss maintains that the essence [of myth] lies in irreducible fact of by [means of] and for [the purpose of establishing] opposition so that a myth occupies position, not within language and within culture or sub-culture, but at point of articulation of these with languages and cultures (1971:576-577). At first sight, this assumption might appear to offer useful point of departure for studies of manner in which members of one social group irreducibly shape structures with reference to social and constraints arising from situation of contact with other groups. Yet Levi-Strauss believes that the fact of translation renders philological studies somewhat superfluous: attention to precise shades of meaning brought into play by particular terms or rituals will merely add supplementary dimensions to [our understanding of] myth . . without essentially altering [a structuralist analysis of] its content (1971:577). To musicologists, this rejection of philology is workable only if one accepts definition of musical para-