Getting Scientists and Ethnomusicologists to Work Together: Some Thoughts and Recommendations

Abstract

Iam grateful to Francesca Sborgi Lawson for her contribution to the flowering discussion about whether there really is a role for scientific empiricism in eth nomusicological thought and research, and also for sharing with me an earlier paper on acoustic ecology (Lawson 2007). In this current study, Lawson explores the interaction between aural paradigms and orthography in the genre of shulaibao and its descendent, kuaibarshu, in pre- and post-revolutionary China. In both articles, she pursues the goal of collaboration, perhaps even integration, of contemporary scientific research domains with approaches in humanistic studies such as historiography. She wishes to align with Becker’s (2009) focus on “enabling” models and attitudes, Titon’s (2009) hope for an integrationist and better-theorized applied ethnomusicology, and Bakan’s (2008, 2009) appeal to a situationist-oriented approach to the empirical study of musical activity. One way Lawson signals this goal is her borrowing of E. O. Wilson’s (1998:64–65) term consilience to signify a rapprochement between humanis tic and scientific modes of study. Wilson employed the term to mean “global synthesis,” but in Lawson’s discussion “areas of consilience” seems clearly to indicate something rather like “agreement” or “concord.” This becomes the springboard for constructing a theoretical and partly empirical case for applying insights in social science, cognitive psychology, and evolution ary biology to the study of musical behavior. Perhaps a global synthesis of ethnomusicology and science is possible, or perhaps there are only limited areas of concord. The path is likely to be difficult and fraught with difficul ties, but I certainly believe it can be enlightening, and that we—scientists and humanists—can walk it together. Lawson singles out the work of Patel (2008), which offers us a detailed picture of the neural interconnectedness of language and music in the brain.

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