NEW ETHNOMUSICOLOGICAL ANALYSIS TECHNIQUES

Bulletin of the Transilvania University of BraşovSeries VIII: Performing Arts Vol. 7 (56) No. 1 - 2014NEW ETHNOMUSICOLOGICALANALYSIS TECHNIQUESMădălina Dana RUCSANDA1Abstract: Research in traditional oral music must not carry on today withstrictly musical means of investigation, means which, we must admit, havegiven some clear results so far, but which today, viewed from a generalizedperspective, will provide a partial, superficial knowledge of the phenomenon.The lack of its own methodological tools has led to borrowing various modelsof analysis from linguistics, phonology, experimental psychology andacoustics, in order to understand the relevant criteria that can clarify thearticulation means between music and the studied sociocultural context. In ageneral manner, all these concur to the analysis of the music act andcontribute equally to highlight the anthropological dimension of eachethnomusicological approach. Of the many possible approaches that can beapplied in the typological classification or in the comparison of the melodic,rhythmic or metrical features in folklore genres, we will hereinafter mentionnine.Key words: techniques, analysis, modern, ethnomusicology.1.Terminological explanationsThe term ethnomusicology first appearedin 1950, when Jaap Kunst used it as asubtitle for his book, Musicologica [7]with the intention of replacing the term ofcomparative musicology and to distinguishthe new investigation field from thewestern Europe musicology. The one whospoke about a comparative musicologywith ethnographic purposes was GuidoAdler, who considers that it "gives itselfthe task of comparison of the soundproducts, especially the folksongs ofdifferent peoples, lands and territories forthe purposes of ethnographic ends, and togroup and divide them according to thedifference in their nature" [11].1Thedefinitionsgiventoethnomusicology over time are numerous,sometimes even contradictory. Withouthaving exhaustive claims, we will expresssome views, in order to understand howthis science has been defined.In the New Grove Dictionary of Musicand Musicians, ethnomusicology is definedas "the study of social and cultural aspectsof music and dance in local and globalcontexts" [9].Jaap Kunst defined ethnomusicology asthe study of the music and musicalinstruments of all non-European peoples,including both the so-called primitivepeoples and the civilized Easternnations [7].Dept. of Performing Arts, Transilvania University of Braşov.

82Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Braşov Series VIII Vol. 7 (56) No. 1 - 2014ConstantinBrăiloiudefinedethnomusicology as “l'étude d'une musiquequi, intégrée à l'existence de tout unchacun, et qui, concernant l'ensemble deceux qui en font usage, se passe d'écriture,en connut-elle même une” [2].According to Cl. Marcel- Dubois,„ethnomusicology is closest of all toethnology, in spite of its obvious featuresof musicological specialisation. It studiesliving musics; it envisages musicalpractices in their widest scope; its firstcriterion is to address itself to phenomenaof oral tradition. It tries to replace the factsof music in their socio-cultural context, tosituate them in the thinking, actions andstructures of a human group and todetermine the reciprocal influences of theone on the other; and it compares thesefacts with each other across several groupsof individuals of analogous or dissimilarcultural level and technical milieu” [5].About the ethnomusicologists one cansay that they study music in the sociocultural context, they are not onlyinterested in the music itself and its role insociety, but also in the musical behaviourof humans.The term ethnomusicology is used in someEuropean countries: thnomusikologie(musikethnologieGermany), ethnografia muzyczna (Poland)etc. In Russia, Bulgaria and Ukraine thereis a distinction between etnomuzïkalnaya(the study of traditional music) andetnografiyamuzïkalnaya(musicalethnography). The term ethnomusicologywas also adopted by specialists from theCzech Republic, Slovakia and theNetherlands, while in Germany andAustria, some scholars continue to use theterm Vergleichende Musik-wissenscha(comparative musicology).2. Short diachronic incursionEthnomusicology has undergone severalsuccessive stages of development, due tothe emergence of different schools thedescription of musical styles in therepertory of specific communities, byconducting field surveys and by ogy research aimed at ”threeareas of interest in three kinds of music:first, the music of primitive communities,the illiterate (tribal music), then the orallytransmitted music in major Asian and Arabcultures and thirdly, folklore music, aspecific and particular musical language,whichdevelopedinuntrainedenvironments dominated by tall cropsterritories.” [6, p.8.]Referring to the research methodology,in 1909, Ovid Densuşianu said that thefolklorist must also include in his field ofobservation the present and the past, as thepresent actions can be better understood ifwe also know those of the past, becausebetween "what there is and what there was,our mind should always extend bridges oflight" [4].Nowadays, the ethnomusicologist’smission is significant, because, asGiuseppe Cocchiara said "the definingissue of folklore is not philological,sociological, psychological, ethnographicetc., but it is historical, which includes andtransforms all others". He believes that wecannot deny the importance that thevarious philological or naturalist subjectshave in folklore, which should interferewith it by highlighting each other [3].In the first half of the twentieth century,in comparative musicology, the role of thecomparison and the place of the musicalobject, as main research objective,changed. In the second half of thetwentiethcentury,ethnomusicology

M.D.RUCSANDA: New Ethnomusicological Analysis Techniquesincluded among its preoccupations themethodologies of a growing number ofsubjects, trying to support the n, even when that meantdistancing ethnomusicology from thesubjects with which hitherto it wasintersectedthroughmethodology,institutional structures - musicology,anthropology and folklore.In the last decades of the twentiethcentury, postmodern and postcolonialorientations in ethnomusicology attachgreat importance to the ethnographicmaterials collected and the researchmethods specific to the social sciences.Psychological theories that treated musicas a product of nature are replaced bytheories specific to cognitive sciences,according to which music is the result ofhuman mental processes. In this ist Alan Merriam believesthat music is only one of the three studyobjects in any research, the other two ation”, thus following thetwoanthropologicaldirections,psychological and aesthetic [8].3. New ethnomusicological analysistechniquesThe lack of its own methodological toolshas led to borrowing various models ofanalysis from linguistics, phonology,experimental psychology and acoustics, inorder to understand the relevant criteriathat can clarify the articulation meansbetweenmusicandthestudiedsociocultural context. In a general manner,all these concur to the analysis of themusic act and contribute equally tohighlight the anthropological dimension ofeach ethnomusicological approach. Of themany possible approaches that can beapplied in the typological classification or83in the comparison of the melodic, rhythmicor metrical features in folklore genres, wewill hereinafter mention nine.3.1. Descriptive statistics deals with thecollection, classification and presentationof numerical data and inferential statisticsdeals with the interpretation of data offeredby the descriptive statistics and use them todraw conclusions.3.2. Cluster analysis (grouping cases orvariables) is a descriptive technique usedfor grouping similar entities from a data setor equally for highlighting entities thatshow substantial differences from a group.It includes two types of methods:3.2.1. Non-hierarchical methods, ofwhich the most well-known is the kmeans method, which is based upon the kvalues (usually random) and based on themclusters are formed.3.2.2. Hierarchical methods, which canbe agglomerative (it starts from n classes(the number of cases) and leads to a classthat includes all the other preceding it) anddivisive (it starts from a class and leads ton classes (the number of cases) included inthe starting class).3.3. Fuzzy logic is a precise logic ofimprecision and approximate reasoning.More specifically, the fuzzy logic can beviewed as an attempt of formalization /mechanization of two remarkable humancapabilities. First, the ability to converse,to reason and make rational decisions in anenvironment of imprecision, uncertainty,incompleteness regarding the information,conflicting information, partiality of truthand partiality of possibility - in short, in anenvironment of imperfect information.Secondly, the ability to perform a varietyof physical and mental activities withoutany measurements or calculations. In fact,one of the main contributions of fuzzylogic - a contribution that is not widelyrecognized - is its great power ofprecipitation. The fuzzy logic is muchmore than a logical system. It has many

84Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Braşov Series VIII Vol. 7 (56) No. 1 - 2014facets. The main issues are: logical, fuzzyset-theoretic, epistemic and relational.Most of the practical applications of fuzzylogic are associated with the relationalaspect. [10]3.4. Fourier analysis is applied and usedin particular to problems of analysis ofrepetitive data sets from different ons etc. We add an exampledone by using the software "EmapSon" inwhich we see how the Fourier analysishighlights the complexity of the musicalsound by the fairly large number ofharmonics that accompany the fundamentalfrequency (see the next exemple).Fig. 1. ExampleFig.2. Fourier analysis in detailFig.3. General spectral analysisFig.4. Analysis spectral melodicThe Fourier transformation enables usthe representation of a repetitive song inanother space than the height of eachsound, i.e. the n-dimensional space of theperiod duration3.5. Markoff chains method, created bythe Russian mathematician AndreiAndreyevich Markov, starts from thearbitrarily premise that the height of asound is determined directly or indirectlyby the previous sound. In reality, thenetwork of causality can be more complexand can be determined by an interferencealgorithm of the structure from theM.C.M.C. category (Markov Chain MonteCarlo), i.e. the Metropolis-Hastingsalgorithm.3.6. Bayes networks analysis method isa classification method with bothpredictive and descriptive potential andowes its name to the British ministerThomas Bayes (1702-1761). It allows theanalysis of the relationship between eachindependent variable and dependentvariable by calculating a conditionalprobability for each of these relationships.When a new issue is intended to beclassified, the prediction is achieved bycombining the effects of independentvariables on the dependent variable.3.7. Fractal dimension. The hypothesisof the fractal structure of language wasformulated in 1992 by Ludek Hreb Ieek,who observed the superstructure of the