Questions to Consider

1. What do ethnomusicologists mean when they say, “Music is universal, but it is not a universal language”? They mean that music is not a language because music does not have specific symbols in standard patterns and does not have grammar rules and also music can mean different things to people in different cultures.
2. What are potential problems in classifying music as “classical,” “folk,” or “popular”? The problem is that they suggest that one type of music is better than the other and also different cultures may have different definitions for what “classical,” “folk,” or “popular” music is.
3.How might an ethnomusicologist approach the study of Western Classical music differently from a musicologist? An ethnomusicologist might approach to study Western classical music and its effect on the Western society and a musicologist would just study the music as a whole.
4. What is “fieldwork”? What is it’s importance to the study of world music? Fieldwork: The first hand study of music in its original context, a technique derived from anthropology. it gives researchers a better understanding of the music they are studying since it gives them the opportunity to be out in the real world interacting with the people of the music they are studying
5. In what ways does world music study require an interdisciplinary approach? because not only is the music itself being studied, but the culture is being studied as well.
6. What is ethnocentrism? Have you ever experienced it ? Ethnocentrism: The unconscious assumption that one’s own cultural background is “normal”while that of others is “strange” or “exotic”. I have experienced this, when i was younger i always thought that other cultures were really strange and thought that everything in my culture was normal, but as i got older and met different people who