The Study of Ethnomusicology: Thirty-one Issues and Concepts, 2nd Edition

By Bruno Nettl

Book Overview

The first edition of this book, The Study of Ethnomusicology: Twenty-Nine Issues and Concepts, has become a classic in the field.This revised edition, written twenty-two years after the original, continues the tradition of providing engagingly written analysis thatoffers the most comprehensive discussion of the field availableanywhere. This book looks at the field of ethnomusicology - defined asthe study of the world's musics from a comparative perspective, and thestudy of all music from an anthropological perspective - as a field ofresearch. Nettl selects thirty-one concepts and issues that have beenthe subjects of continuing debate by ethnomusicologists, and he addsfour entirely new chapters and thoroughly updates the text to reflectnew developments and concerns in the field. Each chapter looks at itssubject historically and goes on to make its points with case studies, many taken from Nettl's own field experien

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0252072782
• ISBN13: 9780252072789
• Release Date: December 2005
• Publisher: University of Illinois Press
• Length: 528 Pages
• Weight: 1.61 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 1.3" x 6.0"
• Age Range: 13 to 18 years

Customer Reviews

great work

This is one of the most important works of Nettle. He discuss the interesting issues which sculpture the ethnomusicology in his time.

Very well done!

This book is an overview and introduction to the field of ethnomusicology. In the introduction, Nettl mentions that the book could be used as an introduction to ethnomusicology for graduate students. However, the text is quite accessible and the terminology and concepts are easily comprehensible to the general reader. The book consists of essays by Nettl on numerous topics that cover the field of ethnomusicology. Many of the essays have catchy titles that address commonly-held beliefs about ethnomusicology directly, such as "The Non-Universal Language", or "Music Hath Charms". The book is very well referenced, and it provides a succinct introduction to the ethnomusicology literature. If you want to know what ethnomusicologists do (or think about), this book will be quite useful.As a linguist, I was struck when reading this book by how relevant much of linguistic theory and research could be for the field of ethnomusicology. The methods of historical linguistics could be quite useful for researchers studying the spread of instruments or musical forms. Formal theories of syntax and phonology could also be applied to intervals in scales and rhythms. Nettl considers many of these possibilities, and reviews published research in these areas. One important area that could receive even more focus is the association of form and meaning, a concept that is at the foundation of linguistic research, but doesn't seem to be a central issue for ethnomusicologists, at least as discussed in these essays.

The Study of Ethnomusicology is ethnomusicologist's bible.

The Study of Ethnomusicology is very usefull book to a person who's mother tongue is not English.The way Mr. Nettl uses English in his book is very colourfull and understandable,and it is NOT boring!To describe my experieces of this book shortly is; a stranger became a friend. The Study of Ethnomusicology is not only for ethnomusic researchers, but for all kind of music studies. Why 8? Well, nobodys perfict.