Perspectives on the Study of Non-Western Popular Musics

Abstract

Abstract Much has been written about the distinctions between folk, classical, and more recently, popular musics. It is often easy to regard such discussions, whether justifiably or not, as gratuitous exercises in abstract taxonomy, and it is clear that they are generally of more import to musicologists than to performers or audiences. Nevertheless, world musics often do lend themselves to broad, if occasionally ambiguous taxonomies, the clarification of which helps us to understand the nature of these genres in terms of the attributes they share or do not share with others. Moreover, many cultures themselves do distinguish between folk, art, and popular music styles. Hence such categories often can and should be employed as “-emic” constructs in understanding ethnic mu¬ sic from the perspective of its own culture. What sh6uld be avoided is not the use of clearly defined classifications, but rather the tendency to attach ethnocentric, class-centric, or idiosyncratic values to such concepts. At the same time, in order to understand the relationship between these different kinds of music, one must define the underlying, generally unarticulated criteria which distinguish them.