The anthropology of music / [by] Alan P. Merriam.
| Author/creator | Merriam, Alan P. |
| Format | Book |
| Publication Info | [Evanston, Ill.] : Northwestern University Press, 1964. |
| Description | xi, 358 pages : music ; 24 cm |
| Subjects |
| Contents | Preface -- Part 1: Ethnomusicology -- The study of ethnomusicology -- Toward a theory for ethnomusicology -- Method and technique -- Part 2: Concepts and behavior -- Concepts -- Synesthesia and intersense modalities -- Physical and verbal behavior -- Social behavior: the musician -- Learning -- The process of composition -- Part 3: Problems and results -- The study of song texts -- Uses and functions -- Music as symbolic behavior -- Aesthetics and the interrelationship of the arts -- Music and culture history -- Music and cultural dynamics. |
| Abstract | In this highly praised and seminal work, Alan Merriam demonstrates that music is a social behavior--one worthy and available to study through the methods of anthropology. In it, he convincingly argues that ethnomusicology, by definition, cannot separate the sound-analysis of music from its cultural context of people thinking, acting, and creating. The study begins with a review of the various approaches in ethnomusicology. He then suggests a useful and simple research model: ideas about music lead to behavior related to music and this behavior results in musical sound. He explains many aspects and outcomes of this model, and the methods and techniques he suggests are useful to anyone doing field work. Further chapters provide a cross-cultural round-up of concepts about music, physical and verbal behavior related to music, the role of the musician, and the learning and composing of music. This book illuminates much of interest to musicologists but to social scientists in general as well. |
| Abstract | This book was written in the belief that while music is a system of sounds, an assumption that provides the point of departure for most studies of music in culture, it is also a complex of behavior which resonates throughout the whole cultural organism--social organization, esthetic activity, economics, religion. This book is to be distinguished from other studies by its model of music as human action, making this work of interest not only to the ethnomusicologist and anthropologist, but also to those concerned with the nature of music, the nature of man, and the nature of msuic in human culture. Specifically, this model for the study of ethnomusicology is equally applicable to the study of visual arts, dance, folklore, and literature. |
| Local note | Little-89237 - $10.00 |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliography (pages 321-343) and index. |
| LCCN | 64022711 |