The Conference on
Interdisciplinary Musicology
Promoting unity in diversity
Richard Parncutt
Department of Musicology, University of Graz
Approaches to Music Research: between Practice and Epistemology
Department of Musicology, University of Ljubljana, 8-9 May 2008
The Conference on
Interdisciplinary Musicology
CIM is a forum for constructive interaction among
all subdisciplines or paradigms of musicology:
analytical, applied, comparative, cultural, empirical, ethnological,
historical, popular, scientific, systematic, theoretic
...and all musically relevant disciplines:
acoustics, aesthetics, anthropology, archeology, art history and theory,
biology, composition, computing, cultural studies, economics,
education, ethnology, gender studies, history, linguistics, literary
studies, mathematics, medicine, music theory and analysis,
neurosciences, perception, performance, philosophy, physiology,
prehistory, psychoacoustics, psychology, religious studies, semiotics,
sociology, statistics, therapy
The Conference on
Interdisciplinary Musicology
CIM promotes interdisciplinary collaboration within musicology.
All contributions have at least two authors. They represent at least two of the
following three groups: humanities, sciences, practically oriented disciplines.
CIM focuses on quality rather than quantity.
Academic standards are promoted by anonymous peer review of submitted
abstracts by independent international experts in relevant (sub-) disciplines.
The review procedure is transparent, and the reviews are impersonal and
constructive.
CIM promotes musicology's unity in diversity.
CIM promotes all interdisciplinary music research and treats all musically
relevant disciplines and musicological subdisciplines equally.
Past and future CIMs
Year
Theme
City
Host
Director
2004
-
Graz
University of Graz
Parncutt
2005
timbre
Montréal
Observatoire internationale de
la création musicale
Traube
2007
singing
Tallinn
Estonian Academy of Music
and Theatre
Ross
Thessaloniki
Aristotle University of
Thessaloniki
Cambouropoulos
2008 structure
2009
instruments
France
Université Pierre et Marie
Curie
Castellengo
2010
culture
Sheffield
University of Sheffield
Dibben
Themes  bottom-up unification of musicology
Why CIM?
•
•
•
•
Fragmentation of musicology
Starkly contrasting epistemologies
Institutional separation of subdisciplines
Counterproductive power structures
Fragmentation of musicology
a „semiquantitative“ history of music research:
proportion
100
historical
80
systematic
60
40
20
0
ethnological
1600
1700
1800
année
1900
2000
Contrasting epistemologies
(historical)
“Musicology”
Ethnomusicology
“music”
score
part of culture
readership
“musicologists”
interdisciplinary
repertory
lost
disappearing
focus
composer, score
performance
concepts
individual, idiosyncratic
history, development
musical autonomy
formal unity
culture, typical
tradition, change
social function
cultural uniqueness
authority
scholar
informants
Source: Jonathan Stock, Current Musicology, 1998
Institutional separation of
musicological subdisciplines
in-group (“the” musicology)
• music history
• music theory/analysis
• cultural studies
intermediate
•
•
•
•
•
ethnomusicology
pop/jazz research
music sociology
music philosophy
performance research
out-group (Others)
•
•
•
•
music acoustics
music psychology
music physiology
music computing
Power structures in musicology
Ambiguous use of “musicology”
• broad definition = all study of all music
– entries in Grove, MGG…
• narrow = music history of western cultural elites
– names of conferences journals, societies
Academic status of humanities
• in universities: too little power
– culture is underrated
• in musicology: too much power
– sciences are underrated
CIM’s solution: Integration
• multidisciplinary balance
– promotion of minority disciplines
– democracy, balance of power
• gender/culture balance
– women researchers
– non-western researchers
• collaboration
– teamwork and collegiality
– intra- and interdisciplinary quality control
Aims of CIM’s integration policies
• Productivity of musicology
– quality
– quantity
• Relevance of musicology
– social, cultural
– academic
• Musicology’s unity in diversity
– completeness through inclusion
• musics
• disciplines
• researchers
Collegiality in interdisciplinary
research teams
– common goals
• research question
• excellence
– democracy
• equal value and rights of team members
• mutual respect
– transparency
• clear statement of aims
• openness to evaluation
– quality control
• evaluation within disciplines
• realistic appraisal of strengths, weaknesses
• mutual constructive criticism
Some definitions
“Discipline”
“Interdisciplinarity”
“Musicology”
“Musicologist”
“Discipline”: Definition
• Content
– theme
– methods
• Experts
– qualifications
– success indicators
• Infrastructure
–
–
–
–
conferences
societies
journals
quality control
Size
• expertise takes 10 years or
10 000 hours (Ericsson)
Category boundaries
• fuzzy
• top-down vs bottom-up
Interrelationships
• hierarchies
• networks
“Discipline”: Implications
Musicology comprises several disciplines
Their names and boundaries are in flux
No individual can cover all musicology
Collaboration is necessary
“Interdisciplinarity”: Definition
• continuous parameter
• matter of expert opinion
• distance ~ difficulty
– epistemology
– methodology
“Interdisciplinarity”: Implications
ID must be directly promoted
ID infrastructures are necessary
“Musicology”: Definition
All study of all music
“Musicology”: Questions
Which music?
– aesthetically superior?
– easily studiable?
– own culture?
Which study?
– music as behavior? experience?
– observables? instructions (scores)?
– historical development? cultural element?
“Musicologist”
• specialisation in one subdiscipline
• acquaintance with all subdisciplines
• interdisciplinary collaboration
Ethnomusicologist: both ethnologist and musicologist
Music acoustician: both musicologist and acoustician
Role of internal quality control
Europeans can’t evaluate Ghanaian music
Psychologists can’t evaluate historical research
Musical subculture:
– internal aesthetic norms
– procedures to promote “good” music
Academic subdiscipline:
– internal epistemological/methodological norms
– procedures to promote “good” research
 Definitions of “music”, its “study”, “musicology”
Problems of CIM
•
•
•
•
definition and use of „musicology“
acceptance by different disciplines
relationship aims ↔ procedures
balance humanities, sciences, practice