Ethnomusicology: A Discipline Defined

comparative musicology, invented the new term ethno-musicology. In so doing he placed the prefix or combining term ethno in front of the word musicology to indicate that the study was of the music of the races of man (1950:7). However, his definition was restrictive in that the study of Western art and popular music was excluded. In a later redefinition of the term, he indicated that the study also included the sociological aspects of music (1959:1). Since that time that field of study known as ethnomusicology has expanded so rapidly that it now encompasses almost any type of human activity that conceivably can be related in some manner to what may be termed music. The data and methods used are derived from many disciplines found in the arts, the humanities, the social sciences, and the physical sciences. The variety of philosophies, approaches, and methods utilized is enormous. It is impossible to encompass them all within one definition. In my opinion, ethnomusicology cannot be adequately defined as an interdisciplinary activity. It is too diffuse, too amorphous. Ethnomusicology can only be defined when we consider what the ethnomusicologist is better equipped to accomplish than the anthropologist, the folklorist, the historian, the linguist, the so-called historical musicologist, the psychologist, or the sociologist. If we focus upon this, that activity which is uniquely ethnomusicological, we are then in a position to define ethnomusicology. However, in this process ethnomusicology becomes a discipline in its own right and, like