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Music archaeology is an interdisciplinary field of study that combines musicology and archaeology. As it includes the study of music from various cultures, it is often considered to be a subfield of ethnomusicology.
According to music archaeologist Adje Both, "In its broadest sense, music archaeology is the study of the phenomenon of past musical behaviours and sounds." [2] Music archaeologists often combine methods from musicology and archaeology. A theoretical and methodological basic work is still missing and one of the main areas of interest for the international community of researchers. [3]
Research goals in the field include the study of artifacts relevant to the reconstruction of ancient music, such as sound-producing devices, representations of musical scenes, and textual evidence. The archaeological analysis and documentation of such artifacts including their dating and description and analysis of their origin and cultural context can improve understanding of the usage of an instrument and can sometimes allow reconstruction of functional replicas. To produce music in a broader sense may also mean the investigation of early musical notations and literary sources.
The field has also expanded to include neurophysiological, biological, and psychological research examining the prerequisites for music production in humans.
One of the first attempts to join the two distinct disciplines of musicology and archaeology took place at the conference of the International Musicological Society at Berkeley in 1977. One of the round tables was designated "Music and Archaeology", to which were invited specialists to discuss the musical remains of ancient cultures: Bathia Bayer (Israel), Charles Boilès (Mexico), Ellen Hickmann (Egypt), David Liang (China), Cajsa S. Lund (Sweden). The main stimulus for this was the sensational discovery of an ancient Mesopotamian musical system by Anne D. Kilmer, an Assyriologist in Berkeley. On the basis of this discovery, she was able to advance a decipherment and transcription into Western notation of a late Bronze Age hymn in the Hurrian language, excavated from Ugarit, which contained notation based on the Mesopotamian system. With the help of musicologist Richard L. Crocker (Berkeley) and instrument maker Robert Brown, a replica of a Sumerian lyre was made, and Kilmer's version of the Hurrian hymn was recorded, accompanied by a carefully prepared commentary, as Kilmer/Crocker/Brown, Sounds from Silence, Recent Discoveries in Ancient Eastern Music (LP with information booklet, Bit Enki Publications, Berkeley, 1976). At the round table in Berkeley, Kilmer explained their method of reconstruction and demonstrated the resulting sound. This was the starting point of the ICTM Study Group on Music Archaeology, officially founded within the International Council for Traditional Music (ICTM) in Seoul/Korea in 1981, and recognized by the ICTM in New York in 1983 following its first meeting on current music-archaeological research in Cambridge/UK in 1982.
The ICTM Study Group on Music Archaeology went on to hold international conferences in Stockholm (1984), Hannover/Wolfenbüttel (1986), Saint Germain-en-Laye (1990), Liège (1992), Istanbul (1993), Jerusalem (1994/1995, together with the ICTM-Study Group for Iconography), and Limassol, Cyprus (1996). These meetings resulted in comprehensive conference reports.
The International Study Group on Music Archaeology (ISGMA) has been founded by Ellen Hickmann and Ricardo Eichmann in 1998. The Study Group emerged from the ICTM Study Group on Music Archaeology with the objective to obtain closer cooperation with archaeologists. Since then, the ISGMA has worked continuously with the German Archaeological Institute, Berlin (DAI, Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Berlin). A new series called "Studien zur Musikarchäologie" was created as a sub-series of "Orient-Archäologie" to present the conference reports of the ISGMA, and to integrate music-archaeological monographs independent of the Study Group's meetings; it is published by the Orient Department of the DAI through the Verlag Marie Leidorf. Between 1998 and 2004, conferences of ISGMA were held every two years at Michaelstein Monastery, Music Academy of Sachsen-Anhalt (Kloster Michaelstein, Landesmusikakademie Sachsen-Anhalt), sponsored by the German Research Foundation (DFG, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft).
In close cooperation with the Department for Ethnomusicology at the Ethnological Museum of Berlin (Ethnologisches Museum Berlin, SMB SPK, Abteilung Musikethnologie, Medien-Technik und Berliner Phonogramm-Archiv), the 5th and 6th Symposium of the ISGMA were held in 2006 respectively in 2008 at the Ethnological Museum of Berlin. In friendly cooperation with the Tianjin Conservatory of Music, the 7th Symposium of the ISGMA was held in Tianjin, China, in 2010. The 8th Symposium of the ISGMA (2012) was also held in China, in Suzhou and Beijing, and the 9th Symposium is being planned for September 2014, again held at the Ethnological Museum of Berlin.
Meanwhile, the ICTM Study Group on Music Archaeology continued separately, and holds its own events, although a number of researchers are involved in both groups. After a couple of years of inactivity, Julia L. J. Sanchez re-established the Study Group in 2003 on the initiative of Anthony Seeger, beginning with meetings in Los Angeles, California (2003), and Wilmington, North Carolina (2006). These were followed by a joint-conference in New York (2009), the 11th of the Study Group since its foundation in 1981 (also the 12th Conference of the Research Center for Music Iconography). The 12th conference was then held in Valladolid, Spain (2011), which was the largest meeting of the ICTM Study Group so far, followed by the 13th Symposium of the Study Group held in Guatemala 2013. In 2015, the 14th symposium will be held in Poland. In 2013 it was decided to establish a new series, Publications of the ICTM Study Group on Music Archaeology, published through Ekho Verlag.
On 27 May 2011, a public concert under the banner of Palaeophonics, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Beyond Text programme and the University of Edinburgh Campaign, took place at the George Square Theatre in Edinburgh. The event showcased the outcomes of collaborative research and creative practice by archaeologists, composers, filmmakers and performers from across Europe and the Americas. Whilst inspired and driven by research in music archaeology, Palaeophonics represents the emergence of a new, possibly significant, development within the field and within musicology which approaches the subject through the production and performance of new sound and music based multi-media creative works instead of through direct representation and reproduction. Said by some observers as 'experimental' and 'avant-garde', the event provoked mixed feedback from a wide public audience of around 250 people. A related publication is planned and further Palaeophonics events are thought to be taking place in the future, although none are currently programmed, whilst funding for developing the project is sourced.
In 2013, the European Music Archaeology Project (EMAP) has been funded by the EU funding programme EACEA, for the period of five years. The project will develop a touring exhibition on ancient music in Europe and an elaborate concert and event program. [4] [5]
Music archaeology is an interdisciplinary field with multifaceted approaches, [6] falling under the cross section of experimental archaeology and musicology research. [7] Music archaeology research aims to understand past musical behaviors; this may be done through methods such as recreating past musical performances, or reconstructing musical instruments from the past.
A common research approach for an interdisciplinary field is to develop a collaborative research team with diverse specialists who can offer varying perspectives on data and findings. Music archaeology research teams are frequently composed of musicologists and archaeologists. In addition, specialists such as psychologists, organologists, biologists, chemists, and historians can be key in understanding past musical behaviors. [8] For example, a human physiologist can help provide useful insight on singing and tonal capabilities when analysing excavated human remains. [9] In pursuit of achieving accurate results, it is important that all sources of information and data, regardless of how they are reported or recorded, are treated equally. The information obtained from various scientific approaches can deepen the interpretation of past musical behaviors, sound artefacts, and acoustic spaces. [10] Archaeological researchers date and classify findings from digs to better understand past behaviors; both dating and classifying are equally important when interpreting data. [11]
The ICTM Study Group on Music Archaeology has been founded in the early 1980s. [15] In 2013, the book series Publications of the ICTM Study Group on Music Archaeology has been launched.
The International Study Group on Music Archaeology (ISGMA) [16] has been founded in 1998. The study group is hosted at the Orient Department of the German Archaeological Institute Berlin (DAI, Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Orient-Abteilung) and the Department for Ethnomusicology at the Ethnological Museum Berlin (Ethnologisches Museum Berlin, SMB SPK, Abteilung Musikethnologie, Medien-Technik und Berliner Phonogramm-Archiv).
MOISA: The International Society for the Study of Greek and Roman Music and its Cultural Heritage is a non-profit association incorporated in Italy in 2007 for the preservation, interpretation, and valorization of ancient Greek and Roman music and musical theory, as well as its cultural heritage to the present day. [17]
The Acoustics and Music of British Prehistory Research Network was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, led by Rupert Till and Chris Scarre, as well as Professor Jian Kang of Sheffield University's Department of Architecture. It has a list of researchers working in the field, and links to many other relevant sites. [18]
Musicology is the scholarly analysis and research-based study of music. Musicology departments traditionally belong to the humanities, although some music research is scientific in focus. Some geographers and anthropologists have an interest in musicology so the social sciences also have an academic interest. A scholar who participates in musical research is a musicologist.
Ethnomusicology is the study of music from the cultural and social aspects of the people who make it. It encompasses distinct theoretical and methodical approaches that emphasize cultural, social, material, cognitive, biological, and other dimensions or contexts of musical behavior, in addition to the sound component.
Ancient music refers to the musical cultures and practices that developed in the literate civilizations of the ancient world. Succeeding the music of prehistoric societies and lasting until the Post-classical era, major centers of Ancient music developed in China, Egypt, Greece, India, Iran/Persia, the Maya civilization, Mesopotamia, and Rome. Though extremely diverse, the music of ancient civilizations is frequently characterized by monophony, improvisation and the dominance of text in musical settings.
Prehistoric music is a term in the history of music for all music produced in preliterate cultures (prehistory), beginning somewhere in very late geological history. Prehistoric music is followed by ancient music in different parts of the world, but still exists in isolated areas. However, it is more common to refer to the "prehistoric" music which still survives as folk, indigenous or traditional music. Prehistoric music is studied alongside other periods within music archaeology.
Alan Parkhurst Merriam was an American ethnomusicologist known for his studies of music in Native America and Africa. In his book The Anthropology of Music (1964), he outlined and develops a theory and method for studying music from an anthropological perspective with anthropological methods. Although he taught at Northwestern University and University of Wisconsin, the majority of his academic career was spent at Indiana University where he was named a professor in 1962 and then chairman of the anthropology department from 1966 to 1969, which became a leading center of ethnomusicology research under his guidance. He was a co-founder of the Society for Ethnomusicology in 1952 and held the elected post of president of that society from 1963 to 1965. He edited the Newsletter of the Society for Ethnomusicology from 1952 to 1957, and he edited the journal Ethnomusicology from 1957 to 1958.
Archaeoacoustics is a sub-field of archaeology and acoustics which studies the relationship between people and sound throughout history. It is an interdisciplinary field with methodological contributions from acoustics, archaeology, and computer simulation, and is broadly related to topics within cultural anthropology such as experimental archaeology and ethnomusicology. Since many cultures have sonic components, applying acoustical methods to the study of archaeological sites and artifacts may reveal new information on the civilizations examined.
Ethnochoreology is the study of dance through the application of a number of disciplines such as anthropology, musicology, ethnomusicology, and ethnography. The word itself is relatively recent and etymologically means “the study of ethnic dance”, though this is not exclusive of research on more formalized dance forms, such as classical ballet, for example. Thus, ethnochoreology reflects the relatively recent attempt to apply academic thought to why people dance and what it means.
The Society for Ethnomusicology is, with the International Council for Traditional Music and the British Forum for Ethnomusicology, one of three major international associations for ethnomusicology. Its mission is "to promote the research, study, and performance of music in all historical periods and cultural contexts."
Systematic musicology is an umbrella term, used mainly in Central Europe, for several subdisciplines and paradigms of musicology. "Systematic musicology has traditionally been conceived of as an interdisciplinary science, whose aim it is to explore the foundations of music from different points of view, such as acoustics, physiology, psychology, anthropology, music theory, sociology, and aesthetics." The most important subdisciplines today are music psychology, sociomusicology, philosophy of music, music acoustics, cognitive neuroscience of music, and the computer sciences of music. These subdisciplines and paradigms tend to address questions about music in general, rather than specific manifestations of music. In the Springer Handbook of Systematic Musicology "(the) sections follow the main topics in the field, Musical Acoustics, Signal Processing, Music Psychology, Psychophysics/Psychoacoustics and Music Ethnology while also taking recent research trends into consideration, like Embodied Music Cognition and Media Applications. Other topics, like Music Theory or Philosophy of Music are incorporated in the respective sections."
The Berliner Phonogramm-Archiv is a collection of ethnomusicological recordings or world music, mostly on phonographic cylinders, assembled since 1900 in Berlin, Germany by the institution of the same name.
Ann Buckley is an Irish musicologist, born in Dublin.
Mark Howell is an American musician, composer, ethnomusicologist, and music archaeologist.
Gary Alfred Tomlinson is an American musicologist and the John Hay Whitney Professor of Music and Humanities at Yale University. He was formerly the Annenberg Professor in the Humanities at the University of Pennsylvania. He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, with a Ph.D., in 1979 with thesis titled Rinuccini, Peri, Monteverdi, and the humanist heritage of opera.
Joseph Jordania is an Australian–Georgian ethnomusicologist and evolutionary musicologist and professor. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music at the University of Melbourne and the Head of the Foreign Department of the International Research Centre for Traditional Polyphony at Tbilisi State Conservatory. Jordania is known for his model of the origins of human choral singing in the wide context of human evolution and was one of founders of the International Research Centre for Traditional Polyphony in Georgia.
The Hurrian songs are a collection of music inscribed in cuneiform on clay tablets excavated from the ancient Amorite-Canaanite city of Ugarit, a headland in northern Syria, which date to approximately 1400 BCE. One of these tablets, which is nearly complete, contains the Hurrian Hymn to Nikkal, making it the oldest surviving substantially complete work of notated music in the world. While the composers' names of some of the fragmentary pieces are known, h.6 is an anonymous work.
George Herzog was an American anthropologist, folklorist, musicologist, and ethnomusicologist.
Hittite music is the music of the Hittites of the 17th-12th century BC and of the Syro-Hittite successor states of the 12th-7th century BC.
Ricardo Francisco Eichmann is an Argentine-born German archaeologist. He was the director of the Orient Department of the German Archaeological Institute between 1996 and 2020 and previously a professor of Near Eastern archaeology at the University of Tübingen.
Cajsa S. Lund is a Swedish music archaeologist and prehistorian, who pioneered the study of sound and music in the archaeological record.
The Parthian Empire, a major state of ancient Iran, lasted from 247 BCE to 224 CE, in which a music played a prominent role. Compared to their Western rival, the Roman Empire, much less is known about the Parthians, but information on music can be gathered from a few Parthian texts, accounts from Greek and Roman writers, some archeological evidence, and a variety of visual sources, usually from either Hatra or Nisa, such as terracotta plaques, reliefs and illustrations on drinking horns known as rhytons. Music played a role in many aspects of Parthian life, being used in festivals, weddings, education, warfare and other social gatherings. Surviving artistic records indicate that it involved both men and women, who could be instrumentalists or singers.
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