Appendix 6 - International Music Council

6.10 Research about music and musical diversity
Research on music provides expertise in reflection about the historical development and the
current state of music in society, methodic instruments for, e.g. quality comparisons,
predictions for the future and recommendations.
There is a significant research deficite on musical diversity in Europe,(s. 7.1), in
musicology as well as in the social sciences. Western Europe has lost its leading position in
musicology to the USA, ethnomusicology as the main research field for musics of the
world is rather neglected.
An example would be the music cultures of migrant communities: We know very little
about the music of migrants in Germany, especially of the music culture of the young
generation. I don’t know about any study on music cultures and music preferences of 10-11
class pupils of Turkish heritage.(Raimund Vogels, Professor for Ethnomusicology, Vice
President of the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hannover, Germany).
7: Problems and challenges
NEED FOR MORE RESEARCH AND REPORTS
Musical diversity as a term, that can be employed strategically, still needs to be specified
and defined, in our view. Beyond all academic debate, a public discourse needs to be held
about what musical diversity is in fact.
There is neither an overall agreement about that, nor about the criteria how to measure the
existence and the extent of musical diversity. Although there are a lot of substantial and
valuable reports about culture in Europe, many of them do not deliver clear statements
about music and musical diversity, but rather provide more general information (about
cultural policy, music as art, etc.). These reports also work with such diverse criteria, that
they are quite difficult to compare.
Additionally, many reports (especially those by reporters close to the government or the
ministry dealing with the matter) describe, how things SHOULD be, and do not deliver a
critical analysis of the existing situation, or they are openly judging and not objective.
As well, the usually employed units of measurement concerning musical activities are
money, sales or turnover figures, numbers of participants etc. But these only depict musical
diversity indirectly, and are not necessarily proper to measure it, e.g. concerning existing
(non-commercial) musical practice. Another problem in this context is the customary
classification of musical styles and genres: it often follows arbitrarily set classifications of
music industry and retail; it is not standardized, and thus problematic.
Musical practice (in the non-commercial sector) is generally difficult to measure (only
indirectly e.g. by analysing music and instrument retail figures or participant numbers of
music schools etc.). In existing reports, non-commercial musical practice is often neglected
or treated very unsufficiently. This is very unfortunate, as musical practice is an essential
part of musical diversity, if not to say, its very prerequisite.
Talking about musical diversity we mean all forms of musical expression, and they are not
only determined by the form of their sound(s), but also by their contexts. This applies
particularly for traditional musics, e.g. in rituals, where the context is often prominent, as
well as certain life styles (rural, marine etc.), which used to build the context for e.g. work
songs and have changed radically or even disappeared today. Statistics often reduce music
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