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Introduction
Author(s): Ellen Koskoff
Source: The World of Music, Vol. 34, No. 3, Ethnomusicology and Music Cognition (1992), pp. 3-6

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 3

Introduction

Ellen Koskoff

This issue of the "world of music" is an outgrowth of a* continuing dialogue

between ethnomusicologists and music psychologists that began in 1986 with
the publication of Jay Dowling and Dane Harwood's book, "Music Cognition."
In a review of this book (Koskoff 1988), I shared a certain skepticism (perhaps
cynicism) that the two fields could ever bridge what I saw then as the
considerable gaps between them. The following year, Dane and I organized a
symposium on Music Cognition as part of the annual meeting of the Society for
Ethnomusicology (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, November 1989);
we hoped that such a meeting could result in common ground. A number of
the original symposium participants, and others, whose research also touched
upon these questions, agreed to present their work here.
Simply stated, the major concerns I had initially dealt with basic differ-
ences between the two fields with respect to research design, and the collec-
tion and interpretation of data. The psychology of music, focusing on such
issues as music perception, and the cognitive development and representa-
tion of musical knowledge, primarily sought universais in human behaviour
with respect to music and music learning. Ethnomusicology, related more
closely to the humanistic disciplines of musicology and anthropology, asked
many of the same questions, but (at least since the 1960s) seemed to focus
more on the diversity of human musical experience and the role of specific,
often highly complex, social and cultural contexts. Furthermore, the methods
of psychologists, who collected data through controlled experiments, and
used predominantly American subjects seemed at odds with those of
ethnomusicologists in the (non-American) field, who elicited information in
"real-life" situations, as they co-existed and often collaborated with informants.

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4 • the world of music 34(3) - 1992

Recent developments in the field of cognitive psychology and ethno-

musicology, however, have begun to address these differences and there are
signs of change. The papers presented here, each in its own way, thus seek to
answer the following questions: How have the two fields changed in recent
years, so that they no longer seem at odds with one another? And, what
precisely do they share now?
In the opening essay, "Theories of Meaning and Music Cognition: An
Ethnomusicological Approach," Elizabeth Tolbert suggests that ethnomusi-
cology and cognitive science intersect within the domain of musical meaning.
Citing recent developments in music cognition, neuro-physiology, philosophy,
linguistics, and anthropology, Tolbert asserts that meanings in music are not
found solely within the biological processing of coherent sound structures, nor
are they arbitrarily assigned by given cultures. Rather, differing processes and
levels of meaning formation are embedded, "mutually reinforcing paradigms,"
each informing the other.
Jeanne Bamberger and Evan Ziporyn, in their article "Getting It Wrong,"
approach the question of meaning in music from two separate perspectives.
Ziporyn, in attempting to understand the underlying structure and musical
principles inherent in a Balinese improvisation, by "getting it wrong," gains
considerable insight into these principles - not through a spoken articulation
of the improvisational rules, but rather through their manifestation in the "real
world" of music performance.
Bamberger, in attempting to make musical and cognitive sense from an
invented notational ácheme constructed by two elementary school children,
discovers the flexibility of reshaping and recontextualizing "prior texts," to
provide new meanings. Although Ziporyn and Bamberger's experiences differ
in almost every surface detail, they each search, In their own way, for the
"underlying, active mental organizers that ... shape another's musical mean-
ing."
John Baily and Peter Driver, in "Spatio-Motor Thinking in Playing Folk
Blues Guitar," examine the relationship between human movement and
musical structure. They assert that creative spatial and motor grammars not
only constrain musical performance but also help to account for the auditory
structures of music itself. Seeking a "cognition of music performance," the
authors examine the playing style and technique of folk blues guitarist David
Evans in an attempt to understand more of the creative role that spatio-motor
thinking takes in structuring various improvisational musical forms.
In "Tabla Drumming and the Human-Computer Interaction," James Kip-
pen describes his on-going work with French computer scientist, Bernard Bel,
and their development of a human and computer interactive system that

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 Koskoff, Introduction ■ 5

generates the varied rules governing the aesthetic principles of tabla improvi-
sation. First, Kippen describes the BOL PROCESSOR, a computer-based
model designed to simulate human experience; second, the development and
use of QAVAID, an interactive system that replaces the "researcher" with the
"expert" as the interpreter of musical knowledge and grammatical rules.
Finally, Kippen asserts that it is through the process of performance that the
clues to music cognition are ultimately to be found.
Kathryn Vaughn's article, "Experimental Ethnomusicology: A Perceptual
Basis for Jairazbhoy's Circle of thāt," explores the interaction of the tambūrā
drone timbre with certain melodic fragments found in North India's ten scale
types (thāts). Unlike most experimental designs that use simulated sound
structures, this one employed actual digital recordings made by the famed
Indian musician, Ustad Imrat Khan in a "real-life" concert space. Using a
group of Indian and non-Indian experts to judge the similarity of thāts
(performed with three separate drone tunings) and then subjecting the data to
multi-dimensional scaling, Vaughn found that empirical evidence existed for
Jairazbhoy's 1971 rationale for the cyclic relation between thāts.
The final article, "Situated Cognition in Music," by Lyle Davidson and
Bruce Torff, presents a compelling argument for integrating new theories of
knowledge with ethnomusicological practice in an effort to truly understand
musical knowledge in everyday contexts. Using data drawn from the inter-
actions between participants in two real-life music lessons (one in block
chording for jazz piano improvisations, the other in the Chinese yang ch'in),
the authors show how individual, local, and cultural forces are "tightly inter-
woven to shape musical activity."
Although each article presented here suggests a different avenue to
explore, they all share a genuine interest in integrating the basic assumptions,
methods, and interpretations of ethnomusicology and music cognition to
better understand the underlying principles of musical knowledge - how it is
learned, structured, and realized in the every-day, real-life context of musical
performance. Many of the articles present excellent comparisons of
"epistemologies old and new" (see especially Davidson and Torff, Tolbert,
and Vaughn) that show clearly how earlier disciplinary philosophies and
methods obscured the underlying similarities and connections between the
fields. Further, by bringing in newer theories from related disciplines, such as
linguistics, philosophy, anthropology, neuro and computer science (see Tol-
bert, Baily, and Kippen)- theories that stress the mutual interactions between
various psychological and cultural learning systems- the authors move away
from the older "experimental vs. humanistic" controversy towards a more
friendly, collaborative arena where multiple understandings of knowledge are

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$ • the world of music 34(3) - 1992

mutually embedded. Finally, as the basic unit of study moves away from the
individual within a controlled environment towards the interaction between
individuals within specific social contexts (see especially Bamberger and
Ziporyn, and Davidson and Torff), knowledge systems come to be regarded
not as fixed goals, but rather as constantly In process.
The authors and I hope that the articles presented here will stimulate new
research within the fields of ethnomusicology and music cognition that will
seem in place within each field, for each can richly inform the other. Now that a
bridge has been built, we invite others to cross to the other side, for what is
there now seems somehow friendly and familiar.

References

Dowling, W. Jay & Dane L. Harwood

1986 Music Cognition. Orlando: Academic Press, Inc.
Koskoff, Ellen
1 988 Review of Jay Dowling and Dane Harwood's "Music Cognition." Ethnomusicoiogy
32(1): 155-9.

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