The fourth area of musicology (to the problem of the debatable discourse)

Abstract

The article reviews various schools of thought studying the Kazakh traditional music in Kazakhstan and abroad. The goal – to reveal different scientific areas of studying the Kazakh traditional music, to determine their significance in Kazakhstan and foreign ethnomusicology. There was a compelled cultural and scientific isolation of each country due to suspension of a book-exchange during the Perestroika (Reconstruction) period. As a result, each national school of ethnomusicology has gone its own way. Research in this area underline the need in the overall review of knowledge accumulated by schools of thought with a single representation. Authors give examples of review of various sources using a comparative-typological method, compare their significance and define the general trend of studying the Kazakh traditional music methods, and unite this knowledge in a uniform common school. Local and foreign sources of pre-revolutionary (end of XIX – beginning of ХХ centuries), Soviet and modern writers of the period of Independence of the Republic of Kazakhstan were used. Main existing areas of Kazakhstan musicology were assessed, and conclusions were drawn on the birth of Kazakh ethnoorganology. The main aspect of the article is a focus on emergence in XXI century of the problem of a new cycle in the Kazakhstan science, which presence we can assume because we have written sources about the Kazakh musical culture in foreign languages, and information on materials from far and near abroad. Authors, based on the concept of Alma Kunanbaeva, an ethnomusicologist, formulate new statements about opposition between the Russian-speaking and Kazakh-speaking schools, supplementing it with opposition to foreign-language schools. As a result, an assessment was given to three main existing areas of the Kazakhstan musicology science and the emerging “Fourth” school, which has all prospects of further development not only in Kazakhstan, but also abroad. Examples were shown of a comparative study of sources of the pre-revolutionary period, and merits of each scientist were assessed. The conclusion was drawn on the birth of Kazakh ethnoorganology in the beginning of XX century. Keywords: the Kazakh traditional music, ethnomusicology, school of thought, verbal tradition, foreign materials, the fourth school, the fourth science, an empirical method, a comparative-typological method, interdisciplinarity.