Nettl's Elephant Paperback – August 11, 2010

Never before in history has the world's music been in such flux. Musicians in their travels have always shared and exchanged ideas, tunes, rhythms, and instrument design, but in increasing fashion over the past 50 years, such adaptations among musicians, appreciated by the educated ear of listeners, have developed a spreading, somewhat homogeneous global popular music, with overlaying and fusing of American and West European styles. First radio and recordings and now the internet with YouTube and iTunes and other digital downloads have truly made this planet a global village. Musical boundaries (never rigid) are porous and even amoeboid. Traditional and folk musics are fast becoming library documents of scores and recordings. Such is among the challenges of a relatively recent (since circa 1950) area of music study, ethnomusicology (née comparative musicology and cultural musicology), which is more about anthropology than systematic musical structures. Among the doyens of this field is Bruno Nettl, now an emeritus professor, who looks back in this collection of his essays and papers. He observes the origins of interest in the "others" of music from a Western perspective, on the changing attitudes over centuries and decades on the merits of exotic, improvised, and unnotated music, the expansion of what constitutes music and world music in particular, and the creation of scholarly societies to focus on the different musical traditions. The essays often cover the same territory because the questions of form, scope, and methods have been debated continually with only consensus rulings and cease-fires. Even some terms are relative. After all, an ethnomusicologist from Chicago might study South Indian devotional songs, but an indigenous Indian doing so would find the term offensive and consider herself a pure musicologist (perhaps regarding Anglican hymns in England, ethnomusicology). This nebulous state of the field is why in part the book refers to an elephant (as three blind men giving different descriptions of the beast depending on where they touch).While the basic world music fan may find such academic reading irrelevant and boring, I find myself fascinated and amused. Nettl's frank views have a dry wit and are always constructive. This ethnomusicological book is indeed about the institution, the very notion of a distinct formal program of study, but it touches some central problems of music in general: the evolution of music within society (including the societies of whales and birds, whose songs have been established to be learned dialects and which change over time); the commonality of social unifying purpose and of listener appreciation; medical or healing aspects across cultures; authenticity and core traditions; the love-hate status of musicians (often malcontents, free-spirits, ethnic minorities, lower economic classes) and the role of their diaspora in spreading and adapting music. Nettl brings his book to a conclusion with some diverse reflections on recent approaches in gender distinctions; musical cartography (regional mutual influences); the Blackfoot Native American pow-wows; the guru-student relationship of learning a set of musical canon. He also includes a thoughtful riff on Kurt Weil, the German-Jewish composer of Threepenny Opera and September Song, who fled the Nazis (as Nettl and his family did from Czechoslovakia) to come to America. The music-related identity of such an émigree becomes the underlying focus. Aaron Copland, whose ballets Rodeo, Appalachian Spring, and Billy the Kid and his Fanfare for The Common Man tap into the American ethos, was a Russia-born Jew. What, then, is the musical identity of a general ethnomusicologist? Is it, as with many cultures which do not distinguish art nor music apart from associated socio-cultural activities, AUM?

Nettl does an amazing job highlighting current issues, he takes us back to a perspective of how the field has evolved and possibly the challenges we face. You truly hear Nettl's voice in this work. It's worth the reading. Written by a graduate ethnomusicology student.

Very useful historical resource for Ethnomusicological studies. Much of critical thinkings, humour sense and insightful information. I always enjoy reading Nettle books. chob mak mak krab.

Bruno Nettl is fabulous and great help with my research!

Ótimo.