Transcription in a New Mode

Abstract

T he problem of manual transcription has plagued ethnomusicologists from the very earliest days of the discipline. Recognizing the indispensable need to get the music down on paper, scholars have sighed over the inadequacies of Western notation while continuing to use it. The everincreasing number of new ethnomusicological publications using Western notation is testimony to its status as the preferred medium of written musical communication, despite the determined efforts of several scholars to show its inadequacies. That Western notation is inadequate for ethnomusicological purposes should require no demonstration at this late date. The whole question of notation and transcription has already been examined in detail by Hood (1971:50-122), and a number of pathways to new solutions of the transcription problem have been suggested. Yet few scholars have made attempts to follow up these suggestions or to develop new solutions of their