Extract (PDF) - Peter Lang

Preface
The volume at hand can be considered complementary to a book on systematic and
comparative musicology issued previously that combined essays reflecting theory,
methodology, and disciplinary history with experimental and other empirical studies
as well as with reports of ethnomusicological field work (Schneider [ed.] 2008). A
number of authors who contributed to that volume also have written articles included
in this one. So, in several respects, one could speak of a continuation of efforts.
This volume is organized into four sections plus an appendix. The four sections
contain articles that have been grouped according to main topics. The first relates
to concepts relevant for systematic and cognitive musicology as well as to aspects of
disciplinary history. In his article Marc Leman who lately has outlined a research
programme for embodied music cognition in relation to mediation technology (Leman
2008) proposes a proactive systematic musicology that should take the lead in
planning and organizing research projects that are of social and cultural relevance
rather than to be a moderator of a trans-disciplinary approach to music research.
Jukka Louhivuori who has done field research on music cognition in a cross-cultural
perspective (e.g., Louhivuori 2008), gives an account of how cognitive musicology
was established in Finland, and how it expanded from a science devoted to the
study of the musical mind to an approach that incorporates (almost literally so!)
the body as well as the socio-cultural context in which music making and music listening
take place. Bruno Nettl addresses central issues in ethnomusicology in that
he puts "ten abiding questions" the discipline has been concerned with, such as:
what is music? How did music originate? What is the nature of the musical world?
What are musical idiolects? And also: what is ethnomusicology? Nettl’s reflections
indicate some continuity as well as fundamental changes in ethnomusicological research
paradigms as well as in terminology, canons, and also in self-image. In many
respects, ethnomusicology has become much broader and diversified in its orientations
(and, in turn, less homogeneous in regard of methodology, canons, etc.). Since
there has been a long-standing connection between systematic and comparative musicology,
and also ethnomusicology (see Nettl 2005, Schneider 2006), Oskár Elschek
who has reconstructed the development of modern musicology, and moreover has
proposed a new system of musicological sub-disciplines and research areas (Elschek
1992), in his contribution to this volume has traced some of the developments in
comparative musicology and in ethnomusicology in the 20th century, with a focus
on Middle and Eastern Europe. In countries such as former Czechoslovakia, Poland,
and Hungary intensive research on regional folk music and folk song has been conducted
for decades that led to specific approaches in regard to methodology, ways
of documentation and publication, etc.
In the second section (acoustics and organology), Rolf Bader explores the acoustics
of a Balinese gender plate. In particular in the transient sounds of these metallophones,
certain mode frequencies occur that can be attributed to the unusual
trapezoid cross-section of each plate. The study of the gender with various methods
including Finite Elements and Finite Differences once again demonstrates that
detailed analysis and modelling is necessary to account for the actual properties of
the instrument in question.