Malin

AAWM JOURNAL VOL. 7 NO. 2 (2019)

Introduction to the Special Issue on Ethnography and Analysis

Yonatan Malin

---

Abstract:

The introduction sets out the goal of this special issue: to explore relationships between ethnography and analysis in an open way, strengthening the discursive web of analytical approaches to world music while also bringing some of its challenges to light. The introduction reviews prior work beginning with a model from Nettl (2015) and the contrast between studies of Arabic maqam by Marcus (1992) in Ethnomusicology and Abu Shumays (2013) in Music Theory Spectrum. Four prior studies are shown to combine ethnography and analysis in distinct ways: Locke (2010) makes a notable move from ethnography to author-driven music analysis, Hesselink (2013) uses ethnography to decenter the solo author/analyst model, Polak (2010) develops questions for empirical analysis from musical experience in ethnographic settings, and Berliner (1994) treats ethnography and music analysis as complementary, mutually corroborating methods. Finally, the introduction presents the four articles of this special issue, situating them in dialogue with prior work.

Read full article in PDF version

Keywords: ethnography, music analysis, music theory, ethnomusicology, analytical approaches to world music, interdisciplinarity

Contributor Information:

Yonatan Malin is Associate Professor at the University of Colorado Boulder.

© 2019 by the author. Users may read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of this article without requesting permission. When distributing, (1) the author of the article and the name, volume, issue, and year of the journal must be identified clearly; (2) no portion of the article, including audio, video, or other accompanying media, may be used for commercial purposes; and (3) no portion of the article or any of its accompanying media may be modified, transformed, built upon, samapled, remixed, or separated from the rest of the article.

---