Nettl’s chapter about the “Heartland Music school” is an interesting attempt to analyze his own music-culture from an ethnomusicologist’s standpoint. He spends more than 25 pages describing, and finally, on page 41, he begins to make concise and clear statements. He writes about Western classical music that outsiders see in it “certain guiding principles of society: hierarchy, specialization, the drive to complexity, the tension between inspiration and labor, conformity, and more.” He continues by comparing music with religion and with government, but finally he acknowledges that he has raised many questions and provided very few answers (if any at all).
Is it easier for an ethnomusicologist to work in a music-culture that he already knows well? Do 50 years of experience make him a better ethnographer and a better person to represent these people?
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