Music Theory in Ethnomusicology

near the beginning of his erudite monograph Music Theory in Ethnomusicology, Stephen Blum asserts that “Ethnomusicologists cannot accept a definition like that in Grove Music Online where ‘Theory’ is ‘An area of study that tends to focus on musical materials per se, in order to explain (and/or offer generalizations about) their various principles and processes’” (9). Modeling a more expansive view of music theory, the author instead shifts the focus to foreground human theorizers while emphasizing processes of theorizing, providing a concise yet near-comprehensive survey of the many ways in which music scholars have uncovered modes of theorizing around the globe and across history. This review highlights aspects of the book that I think will interest music theorists, including those who may be ambivalent about ethnomusicology's emphasis on ethnography.1Music Theory in Ethnomusicology begins by pointing out that theorizing is something done by all humans, arguing that it is not the exclusive domain of scholars nor even necessarily tied to language. This establishes the premise of the book, which proceeds to distill a myriad of perspectives on what historical music theorizing has been and fashion these into a coherent narrative. Chapter 1 (“Ethnomusicologists and Music Theory”) defines and justifies this expansive scope, before evaluating changing perspectives on collaborative transcultural knowledge production. It ends with some concrete recommendations for researchers of music theory, followed by an “Issues” section that takes a long-term historical view of philosophical distinctions between theory and practice. The first four chapters all conclude with such an “Issues” section that consolidates themes and offers incisive insights.Chapter 2 (“Communication and Transformation of Music Theory”) examines research about pedagogical relationships through which musical concepts are transmitted and transformed. The “Issues” section at the end of chapter 2 provides a valuable summary of the debates surrounding ideas of orality, aurality, and literacy, while presenting a strong argument for the usefulness of the term implicit theory. Chapter 3 (“Making Music Theory for Modern Nations”) looks at ethnographic research about institutionalized music theorizing as part of nation building, detailing case studies and providing a summary of recurring themes. The attached “Issues” section traces a shift in how ethnomusicologists have largely moved beyond seeking overarching systems to focus on describing portions of knowledge deemed responsible for regularities in musicians’ actions. Having surveyed modes of theorizing in teaching and learning contexts, the second half of the book turns to theorizing as carried out in speech and writing, directly confronting questions of terminology.Chapter 4 (“Concepts, Models, and Metaphors”) draws on terms such as mode, composition, and model to discuss the varying extents to which abstract terminologies can be used in intercultural scholarship without imposing inappropriate assumptions and parameters from one cultural context to another. The “Issues” section of chapter 4 provides examples of ethnomusicological studies that have served to challenge familiar conceptions.2 Chapter 5 (“Relationships among Names and Terms”) points toward studies of how musicians have created and employed different sets of terminology, while drawing attention toward the discursive nature of theorizing. Chapter 6 (“Actors, Actions, and Outcomes”) concludes the book by refocusing on music practitioners themselves, looking at research on how musicians around the globe theorize through interacting with other musicians in performance. The comprehensiveness of the book is underscored by the book's back matter, which includes forty-eight pages of references.This is a book that only Stephen Blum could have written. As evident in his publication record, Blum's musicological interests over the past six decades have been wide-ranging, he continues to observe and think critically about changing paradigms and priorities in music research, he has maintained a commitment to pedagogy in ethnomusicology, and he has made his own significant contributions on the topic of musical theorizing (e.g., Blum 2009). The familiarity with the breadth of sources marshalled in the book, the wisdom to evaluate and sort this knowledge, and the perseverance to forge a coherent narrative could only have come from a mind that has engaged deeply with this material for years and is committed to sharing these insights.The main limitation of this book is its deliberately restricted length. Given that Blum does a remarkable job of fulfilling in this slim volume the mandate of the book series (“Oxford Theory in Ethnomusicology”)—which is to survey past accomplishments and suggest extensions, alternatives, and new directions—it would be ridiculous to quibble about omissions. Even so, the author himself is quick to point out that “a better book than this one . . . would explore lessons that music theories in languages not considered here can offer” (21); this self-critique can be productively viewed as a call for future research involving global collaborations. The length restriction also means that some paragraphs can be very dense. Reading the first few pages felt like I was wading across a river of grand abstractions, with each sentence requiring focused concentration and imagination to comprehend and retain it; however, this introductory framework provided me with valuable tools for evaluating the numerous case studies that followed. One question that remains open—in light of the book's discussion on tacit knowledge—is how researchers might productively uncover musicians’ unverbalized concepts.The book mostly showcases positive lessons that we can take from past ethnomusicological scholarship, showing that there is still much to learn from older publications even if their overall outlooks may be out of date. The few implicit criticisms of past research are framed as things to avoid, such as “denial of coevalness” with those who help us learn about their musical practices (2) and granting unwarranted “scientific” status to the conceptual apparatus of “Western music theory” (4). However, Music Theory in Ethnomusicology goes beyond simply prescribing good research practices to modeling the sort of expansive scholarship that it recommends. The idea that all humans theorize is supported by ample representation of ethnographic research on musical traditions that do not verbalize or write down their compositional processes. The global scope of musical practices also includes European historical musics, which are not given special status through displacement, but are instead “provincialized.” For example, staff notation is glossed as a tool for “local and cultural theories” that can be contrasted with global meta-theories (4), and notated scores are treated as merely one type of model for performance (94). This provincializing of European art music resonates with recent recommendations for countering systemic biases in Anglophone Music Theory (e.g., Ewell 2023). Indeed, as another historian of music theory has noted, “the issue is not merely one of opening the disciplinary borders so as to allow materials from outside of western (and southern) Europe to be integrated into the subfield's prevailing canons. Instead, those [global] materials and their accompanying voices might be allowed fundamentally to challenge the discipline's received conception of its methods, interests, and concerns” (Martin 2022: 175).The sources compiled and contextualized in chapter 4 can provide valuable perspectives to music theorists with a variety of research foci, such as microtiming and tuning, music that includes improvisation, cognitive universals in music perception, and the cognition of notation. The discussions of explicit and implicit theories (at the end of chapter 2) and terminological relationships (chapter 5) have obvious relevance for transcultural music analysts and for those who study European score-based musics that are related to historical oral music traditions. In addition, given that outside perspectives can often highlight underlying assumptions and trigger surprising insights, I suggest that these discussions will also benefit theorists who specialize in common-practice-era Western art music and scholars who don't subscribe to the idea that theories can be unverbalized. Another point worth highlighting for the JMT readership is the reminder that notation can impose an inappropriate theoretical outlook onto the music being analyzed (54).Practically speaking, music scholars will be able to glean many cautionary tales from the narratives in the book. We are reminded of how music theory can be used as cultural capital (36, 102) that can marginalize others (75), and that the institutionalized authority of written theory can lead to the neglect of oral concepts (32).3 The discussion of mode in chapter 4 alerts us to the cultural situatedness of terms, cautioning against unreflexively applying terms cross-culturally and against taking classification schemes for granted. For those of us who teach and organize conferences, chapters 3 and 4 offer global case studies that should inspire us to reevaluate our agendas.Music Theory in Ethnomusicology is a gift for historians of music theory. Beyond surveying the relevant secondary sources from the past sixty years of ethnomusicology, the book also takes on several millennia of historical writing on music, discussing ideas attributed to figures as diverse as Ling Zhoujiu (China, fourth century BCE), Aristoxenus (Greece, fourth century BCE), Aristotle (Greece, third century BCE), Quintilianus (Spain, first century CE), Bharata (India, ca. second century CE), Lu Chi (China, third century CE), Boethius (Italy, fifth century CE), al-Farabi (Iran, tenth century CE), Johannes de Grocheio (France, thirteenth century CE), and Ibn Khaldun (Tunisia, fourteenth century CE). Henceforth, there is no excuse for histories of music theory to remain ignorant of these names and disregard the geographic trajectories of ideas that have travelled to and from Europe since long before the Age of Imperialism. (As addressed in chapter 3, the Age of Imperialism itself brought about new cross-pollinations of ideas.)Music Theory in Ethnomusicology is a timely contribution to music studies, arriving at a moment when the academic disciplines of ethnomusicology and music theory are becoming more aware of their own insularity and complicity in maintaining an inequitable status quo. One of the book's many strengths is its ability to show how lessons from the past can serve our priorities for the future, and I look forward to seeing how some of the calls to action implicit in Blum's narrative are being addressed in other forthcoming projects such as “Thinking Music: Global Sources for the History of Music Theory” (Thomas Christensen, Carmel Raz, and Lester Hu, eds.) and Music Theory in the Plural (Anna Yu Wang, Chris Stover, and Edwin Li, eds.).In my attempt to convince music theorists to pick up this book, I have tried to highlight the ways in which scholars can benefit from the author's insights into theories of music from around the globe. However, framing the book in this way does a disservice to Blum's truly humanistic vision, which seeks to also give global music practitioners—the people who theorize long before the academic theorists—the overdue recognition they deserve. As the book demonstrates, it is ethnography that allows for otherwise inaccessible information about musical traditions to be uncovered and leaves open the possibility for research products to benefit all collaborators in transcultural knowledge production. And as the author notes humbly, “ethnomusicologists are privileged to meet with musicians and scholars who have thought deeply about actual and potential relationships among older and newer theories and practices. To realize time and again how little we know is one of the continuing pleasures of an ethnomusicologist's life” (76). Continuing his life's work of exemplary scholarship and uplifting the careers of younger scholars, Stephen Blum has bequeathed music studies with a resource to ensure that some of the most thoughtful theorizing by global musicians and scholars is not forgotten. Both ethnomusicologists and music theorists will do well to have this book readily accessible.