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I4 FOLK AND TRADITIONAL MUSIC IN ITS CULTURAL SETTING
alive-which is, of course, due to our first characteristic, oral tradition. |
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Bibliography and discography
Introductions to the general nature of traditional music and its functions in society and as an aspect of human behavior are not numerous. Among the best are some of the articles in Funk and Wagnalls' Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology and Legend, edited by Maria Leach (New York, 1949-1950), entitled "Song" (by George Herzog), "Dance" (by Gertrude P. Kurath), and "Oral Tradition" (by Charles Seeger). An overview of traditional musics, nation by nation, appears in Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 5th ed. (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1954), under the heading "Folk Music." A survey of non-Western music, especially in its historical perspective, appears in the first volume of The New Oxford History of Music (London: Oxford University Press, 1957). Alan P. Merriam, The Anthropology of Music (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1964), provides much material on the role of music in various nonliterate cultures.
Several scholarly periodicals specialize in non-Western and folk music; among them, we should note Ethnomusicology (Journal of the Society for Ethnomusicology); Journal of the International Folk Music Council; and African Music. Bruno Nettl, Reference Materials iff Ethnomusicology (Detroit, Information Service, 1961) is a bibliographical guide to the whole field.
Some articles of interest that explore specific aspects of traditional music everywhere and which are relevant to points made in this chapter are Alan Lomax, "Folk Song Style," American Anthropologist, LXI (1959), 927-954; Maud Karpeles, "Some Reflections on Authenticity in Folk Music," Journal of the International Folk Music Council, III < 1951), 10-16; and K. P. Wachsmann, "The Transplantation of Folk Music from one Social Environment to Another," J-IFMC, VI (1954), 41-45.
A number of records and record sets give examples of the music of many of the world's cultures; These are listed here, although they could also have been listed following Chapter 2 and in some cases later chapters: Music of the World's Peoples, ed. by Henry Cowell (4 albums) Folkways FE 4504-4507; Primitive Music of the World, ed. by Henry Cowell, Folkways FE 4581 (a smaller selection overlapping with the former); Colombia World Library of Folk and Primitive Music, compiled by Alan Lomax (over 20 records, partly reissues of older recordings, partly new material collected by Lomax and others); The Demonstration Collection of E. M. von Hornbostel and the Berlin Phono grammarchiv, Folkways FE 4175 (reissue of an early collection that attempted to show the great variety of the world's musical styles); and Man's Early Musical Instruments, Folkways P 525. |
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