The Conference on Interdisciplinary Musicology Promoting unity in diversity Richard Parncutt Department of Musicology, University of Graz Approaches to Music Research: between Practice and Epistemology Department of Musicology, University of Ljubljana, 8-9 May 2008

The Conference on Interdisciplinary Musicology CIM is a forum for constructive interaction among all subdisciplines or paradigms of musicology: analytical, applied, comparative, cultural, empirical, ethnological, historical, popular, scientific, systematic, theoretic...and all musically relevant disciplines: acoustics, aesthetics, anthropology, archeology, art history and theory, biology, composition, computing, cultural studies, economics, education, ethnology, gender studies, history, linguistics, literary studies, mathematics, medicine, music theory and analysis, neurosciences, perception, performance, philosophy, physiology, prehistory, psychoacoustics, psychology, religious studies, semiotics, sociology, statistics, therapy

The Conference on Interdisciplinary Musicology CIM promotes interdisciplinary collaboration within musicology. All contributions have at least two authors. They represent at least two of the following three groups: humanities, sciences, practically oriented disciplines. CIM focuses on quality rather than quantity. Academic standards are promoted by anonymous peer review of submitted abstracts by independent international experts in relevant (sub-) disciplines. The review procedure is transparent, and the reviews are impersonal and constructive. CIM promotes musicology's unity in diversity. CIM promotes all interdisciplinary music research and treats all musically relevant disciplines and musicological subdisciplines equally.

Past and future CIMs YearThemeCityHostDirector 2004-GrazUniversity of GrazParncutt 2005timbreMontréal Observatoire internationale de la création musicale Traube 2007singingTallinn Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre Ross 2008structure Thessa- loniki Aristotle University of Thessaloniki Cambou- ropoulos 2009 instru- ments France Université Pierre et Marie Curie Castellengo 2010cultureSheffieldUniversity of SheffieldDibben Themes  bottom-up unification of musicology

Why CIM? Fragmentation of musicology Starkly contrasting epistemologies Institutional separation of subdisciplines Counterproductive power structures

Fragmentation of musicology a „semiquantitative“ history of music research: systematic ethnological historical

Contrasting epistemologies (historical) “Musicology” Ethnomusicology “music”scorepart of culture readership“musicologists”interdisciplinary repertorylostdisappearing focuscomposer, scoreperformance concepts individual, idiosyncratic history, development musical autonomy formal unity culture, typical tradition, change social function cultural uniqueness authorityscholarinformants Source: Jonathan Stock, Current Musicology, 1998

Institutional separation of musicological subdisciplines out-group (Others) music acoustics music psychology music physiology music computing intermediate ethnomusicology pop/jazz research music sociology music philosophy performance research in-group (“the” musicology) music history music theory/analysis cultural studies

Power structures in musicology Ambiguous use of “musicology” broad definition = all study of all music –entries in Grove, MGG… narrow = music history of western cultural elites –names of conferences journals, societies Academic status of humanities in universities: too little power –culture is underrated in musicology: too much power –sciences are underrated

CIM’s solution: Integration multidisciplinary balance –promotion of minority disciplines –democracy, balance of power gender/culture balance –women researchers –non-western researchers collaboration –teamwork and collegiality –intra- and interdisciplinary quality control

Aims of CIM’s integration policies Productivity of musicology –quality –quantity Relevance of musicology –social, cultural –academic Musicology’s unity in diversity –completeness through inclusion musics disciplines researchers

Collegiality in interdisciplinary research teams –common goals research question excellence –democracy equal value and rights of team members mutual respect –transparency clear statement of aims openness to evaluation –quality control evaluation within disciplines realistic appraisal of strengths, weaknesses mutual constructive criticism

Some definitions “Discipline” “Interdisciplinarity” “Musicology” “Musicologist”

“Discipline”: Definition Size expertise takes 10 years or hours (Ericsson) Category boundaries fuzzy top-down vs bottom-up Interrelationships hierarchies networks Content –theme –methods Experts –qualifications –success indicators Infrastructure –conferences –societies –journals –quality control

“Discipline”: Implications  Musicology comprises several disciplines  Their names and boundaries are in flux  No individual can cover all musicology  Collaboration is necessary

“Interdisciplinarity”: Definition continuous parameter matter of expert opinion distance ~ difficulty –epistemology –methodology

“Interdisciplinarity”: Implications  ID must be directly promoted  ID infrastructures are necessary

“Musicology”: Definition All study of all music

“Musicology”: Questions Which music? –aesthetically superior? –easily studiable? –own culture? Which study? –music as behavior? experience? –observables? instructions (scores)? –historical development? cultural element?

“Musicologist” specialisation in one subdiscipline acquaintance with all subdisciplines interdisciplinary collaboration Ethnomusicologist: both ethnologist and musicologist Music acoustician: both musicologist and acoustician

Role of internal quality control Europeans can’t evaluate Ghanaian music Psychologists can’t evaluate historical research Musical subculture: –internal aesthetic norms –procedures to promote “good” music Academic subdiscipline: –internal epistemological/methodological norms –procedures to promote “good” research  Definitions of “music”, its “study”, “musicology”

Problems of CIM definition and use of „musicology“ acceptance by different disciplines relationship aims ↔ procedures balance humanities, sciences, practice