Critical Review #6

"Towards an Ethnomusicology of the Early Music Movement: Thought on Bridging Disciplines and Musical Worlds" in Ethnomusicology by Kay Shelemay

In this article, Shelemay argues that there should be a connection between anthropology, ethnomusicology, and historical musicology. She also makes a case that the boundaries between Western and non-Western music in the early music movement do not really exist. Her team focused on the "boundaries, workings and participants on the early music world as constituted in the late 1990s in Boston," using four particular groups in this area as case studies (6). They found that boundaries in this field are tricky to define--I particularly like Joel Cohen's made-up word "elephantology" to summarize the role that uncertainty plays in the movement. Shelemay rests her case in two final assertions: that ethnomusicologists should work within living traditions and that these living traditions should be in the neglected "Western Repertories" (24-25).

Discussion Question: I am curious why Shelemay labeled the team's observation that the Boston early music movement is often a family affair as "provocative"(16-17). Does she really expect people will be shocked to find that professionals who work in the same field often marry each other? Is it more surprising that so many of the children from these marriages apparently ended up in early music as well?