Ethnomusicology

Ethnomusicology is the multidisciplinary study of music in its cultural context. The discipline investigates social, cognitive, biological, comparative, and other dimensions. Ethnomusicologists study music as a reflection of culture and investigate the act of music-making through various immersive, observational, and analytical approaches. This discipline emerged from comparative musicology, initially focusing on non-Western music, but later expanded to embrace the study of all different music.

The practice of ethnomusicology relies on direct engagement and performance, as well as academic work. Fieldwork takes place among those who make the music, engaging local languages and culture as well as music. Ethnomusicologists can become participant observers, learning to perform the music they are studying. Fieldworkers also collect recordings and contextual data.

Ethnomusicology combines perspectives from folklore, psychology, cultural anthropology, linguistics, comparative musicology, music theory, and history. This resulted in various definitions. In 1956, an American ethnomusicologist named Willard Rhodes called it a theoretical and empirical study amalgamating musicology and anthropology. as well as explaining and emphasizing if it were to be seen and "interpreted" in its "broadest sense" it would be seen as "the total music of humankind, without limitations of time and space." Which he captures and emphasizes more of ethnomusicology's double concept between this anthropology aspect and a musicology aspect. In 1992, Titon summarized ethnomusicology as the study of "people making music": people make the sounds called music, and people also make music into a cultural domain, with associated ideas, activities, and material culture.

The word is a portmanteau of 'ethno' (people), and 'musicology' (study of music).

Typical definitions include elements such as a holistic approach, cultural context, music theory, sonic, and historical perspectives. In other words, ethnomusicology is the study of music as a social and cultural phenomenon. Merriam defined ethnomusicology as the study of "music as culture," and offered four goals of ethnomusicology:

The term informant is used for those whom fieldworkers observe, members of the community under study. Informants may or may not represent an entire musical culture, or the ideal of that culture. More recently, ethnomusicologists have preferred terms like "consultant" to "informant," while "primitive" has been replaced with "Indigenous."

Sakakeeny observed that ethnomusicology since the 1980s has focused increasingly on politics.

Some scholars such as Willard Rhode were one of the majority who would bring up arguments of how the field of Ethnomusicology should mainly be defined as a field that explores all musical communities, later situating these styles and practices with its cultural and social contexts.Throughout Rhodes time period, he helped capture the definition of ethnomusicology during that time, this definition being seeing the field of Ethnomusicology as this scientific discipline, meanwhile still holding on to the humanity aspect it has through the lives of communities.