Ethnomusicological Fieldwork Part 1

Ethnomusicological fieldwork started in the late 1800’s, focusing mostly on notation, tempo, and musical styles. Around the early 1900’s, recordings started playing a major role in Ethnomusicology, as it could better clarify and capture musical styles and the way songs were sung in addition to helping preserve music. The earliest of such an invention was the gramophone, where while pieces of music could be recorded, they could not be recorded for a long period of time. Only about twenty seconds of a piece could be recorded at once. However, by the 1950’s, recording technology had improved and made the length and sound much better than before. After the 1950’s, video recording devices became very popular in Ethnomusicology, in addition to other fields in Anthropology due to the better descriptions anthropologists and ethnomusicologists would be able to now have of different societies and cultures.

Ethnomusicology does not have any type of standard fieldwork method. Ethnomusicologists have always attempted to resolve the issue of having no proper standardized fieldwork methods by coming up with newer methodologies. However, it has been realized that ethnomusicological fieldwork tends to be very subjective from culture to culture. At the end of the day, a researcher uses methods and tools which suit their research needs and requirements the best- borrowing mostly from established methodologies seen in cultural anthropology and musicology.