Ethnomusicology and the Music Industries: An Overview - Stephen Cottrell

 When Edison invented the phonograph in 1877 the history of human music-making changed. Listeners no longer needed to be physically present at a musical performance to hear it, transforming the way people experienced music. However, due to the difficulty of reproducing enough of its wax cylinders, the phonograph didn’t provide a real commercial opportunity until later on (Cottrell, 2010, p. 5).

 

Soon, Edison was competing with a new technology. Emile Berliner’s gramophone, developed in 1888, worked with a flat disc system that could be reproduced in large quantities. The main difference, however, was that the gramophone worked as a playback-only machine, meaning that it could not record musical sound. It depended on others to provide its source materials, marking the origins of the commercialization of recorded sound. From this point on, the distribution of these materials could be controlled, monetized, and eventually industrialized (Cottrell, 2010, p. 5). 


As the rest of the twentieth century unfolded, the commodification of recorded musical sound would mark the beginning of a changing and complicated relationship between ethnomusicology and the music industries, particularly record companies (Cottrell, 2010, p. 5).

 

The impact of recording technology on ethnographic studies 


Not all ethnographers embraced the new machines immediately. Some rejected them on practical or economic grounds. At the time they weren’t practical or easy to acquire. But it wasn't a long time before the new technology made an impact on ethnographic studies.

 

The 30 cylinders of Passamaquoddy music recorded by Walter Fewkes in 1890 are often thought of as being the first ethnographic recordings (Cottrell, 2010, pp. 5-6). Ethnographers started recording groups close to the areas where their recording equipment was located with the intention of preserving traditions that already seemed to be disappearing. Wishing also to provide materials that could be used for later studies. (Cottrell, 2010, p. 6).


Few if any of these early recordings were published or sold and none of them involved the music industry as we know it. Their main purpose was to serve the academic community with its two approaches: cultural preservation and scientific inquiry (Cottrell, 2010, p.6)

 

Things changed during 1890 and 1894. When James Mooney, an ethnographer from the Smithsonian Institution traveled to the Western Plains to study the Ghost Dance Religion. During those years he published a report on his research and made a series of recordings of himself performing extracts of the Ghost Dance ceremonies in Emile Berliner’s Washington D.C. studio. Two discs appear on a list of recordings available for purchase from Berliner’s United States Gramophone Company, dated November 1, 1894 (Cottrell, 2020, p. 7). These recordings seem to be the first example of music from beyond the Western classical and popular traditions to be recorded, reproduced and issued for sale with the intention of generating a profit for the record company. They represent the starting point for the commercialization of “world music” (Cottrell, 2010, p. 8). 


Why did Berliner think such recordings were marketable? The growing interest in “cultural exotica '' from the middle of the nineteenth century onwards made this kind of recordings interesting to Berliner’s “middle class–disc buying customers”. In spite of any limitations, we may give Emile Berliner the credit for realizing that music different to Euro-American traditions could provide a commercial opportunity (Cottrell, 2010, p. 8).

 

It wasn't long before ethnographic recordings started being added to record companies’ catalogs. Some of the earliest recordings were of Indian music performed in London by visiting Indian musicians for the Gramophone and Typewriter Limited (GTL) in 1899 (Cottrell, 2010, p. 9).

 

The first “obviously commercial” recordings were made in India, for the same company, by  Fred Gaisberg. By 1903 Gaisberg had made 1,700 recordings of Indian, Burmese, Siamese, Malay, Javanese, Chinese and Japanese music. Companies moved quickly to identify new markets and recordings soon covered many different musical traditions around the globe. An estimate of 14,000 recordings were made in Asia and north Africa between 1900 and 1910 by the Gramophone Company alone (Cottrell, 2010, p. 9).


It is tempting to see the work of ealy recordists such as Gasiber as similar to that of later ethnomusicologists. Even though many of the early recordings were made “in context” and were captured by people with “an interest in the music systems”, it is important to know that written accounts suggest a disinterest of the recordists towards local musicians and their music making process (Cottrell, 2010, p. 10). A representative of the GTL company in India wrote about his disdain of Indian music saying: “as long as it suits them and sells, well, what do we care?”. Record companies were not involved in a conscious act of cultural preservation (Cottrell, 2010, p. 11). 


It’s no surprise that the main objective of the music industry at that time was generating profits from the recordings. Their interests were in making records that they could sell and in the opportunity to sell into the same markets the equipment that was necessary to play them (Cottrell, 2010, p. 11).

 

Meanwhile comparative musicologists were trying to preserve musical traditions on record because they felt that changes were happening fast. However, they failed to notice that both the recording technology and the companies exploiting it were producing at least some of the influences that were driving to such changes (Cottell, 2010, p. 12).


From Comparative Musicology to Ethnomusicology

 

As the interest in world music cultures grew, collections coming from fieldwork recordings and curated by ethnomusicologists with institutional positions to support them, started being introduced by record companies (Cottell, 2010, p. 13). 

 

Academics were glad to be able to reach wider audiences through the mass media distribution offered by recording industries. Ethnographers' involvement added intellectual legitimacy to the companies’ work while allowing them the opportunity to decide which recordings were more representative or appropriate for particular culture groups  (Cottell, 2010, p. 13). Tensions were well managed, maybe because the number of discs –and profits– being made were relatively small (Cottell, 2010, p. 14).

 

However, by the late 1960s and 1970s, the practices of the music industry became a growing concern for ethnomusicologists. A general discomfort was found in the consequences of the widespread circulation of audio recordings. Even the definition of the field as “the study of traditional music transmitted and diffused by memory” started feeling out of place (Cottell, 2010, p. 15).

 

 

“World Music”, Ethnomusicology and the Music Industries

 

By the mid 1980s the relationship between ethnomusicology and record companies became more complex. The lower costs of musical reproduction meant that scholars could finally begin to include recordings as part of their publications. Elizabeth May’s 1980 collection Music of Many Cultures might be the earliest example of this. It included three vinyl discs that illustrated the music cultures in the text. Ethnomusicologists started using other publishing networks to circulate their recordings. Increasing what was known as musical “transculturation”: the displacement and industrialization of musical sound (Cottell, 2010, p. 17).

 

The interest of “first world” countries in traditional music around the globe started generating new interactions between music industries and ethnomusicology. Examples such as traditional musicians involved in the work of Western pop or rock stars; ethnomusicological field recordings appropriated and sampled in popular music discs; and the creation of the term “World Music” as a marketing category brought new questions of ownership, ethics, copyright, exploitation and issues related to local and global ways that academics had not previously considered. (Cottell, 2010, pp. 18-19).


The mid 1980’s marked the end of “ethnomusicological innocence”, since ethnomusicologists now needed to be as familiar with copyright law and sampling as much as ritual theories and kinship systems (Cottell, 2010, p. 21) Ethnomusicologists started asking awkward questions of themselves. What was their role? And how involved should they be in the relationships between musicians and record companies?

 

The Music Industries and Contemporary Ethnomusicological Discourse

 

Over the last two decades the discussion between ethnomusicology and the music industries has become even more “sophisticated”. The diversity of musical styles circulated around the world and the many interactions between these different styles have raised new questions and topics of interest (Cottell, 2010, p. 23).

 

Ethnomusicologists have become more interested in local and regional practices intersected by transnational corporations, for example in the way many musicians have appropriated westernized musical forms and recording technologies for their own creative needs, eventually developing their own musical industries (Cottell, 2010, pp. 23-24). 


There is now a substantial body of work on the music industries and their interactions with “people making music in a rage of contexts around the globe”, increasing the scope of ethnomusicological research such as the legalities, ethics of appropriation, representation and compensation (Cottell, 2010, p. 25). 

 

Additionally, the internet has revolutionized the global production and consumption of all kinds of music. Places like YouTube or Facebook have become the principal means through which musicians interact with each other and their audiences, making it easier for individuals and small companies to take control without the need of larger record companies (Cottell, 2010, p. 25). 

 

Ethnomusicology as a Music industry

 

The discipline as a whole has expanded significantly over the last 25 years. More books, journals, articles, audio and video recordings on the subject circulate more than ever before.

Students are choosing more world music courses and pursuing ethnomusicology as an interest (Cottell, 2010, p. 26). 

 

However it is important to reflect on whether ethnomusicology can be considered a music industry and to what extent, specially when it comes to working with “transnational cultural flows”, somehow capitalized by individuals and organizations, in ways that not always lead to the full compensation the people whose musical knowledge have been traded in (Cottell, 2010, p. 29). 


Several important differences come to mind, first and mostly that of scale, and while few record companies acknowledge any obligation to cultures based on oral tradition, academics have become increasingly aware of the ethical considerations of their research. Ethnomusicology is constantly confronted by music making and sharing on a scale that disciplinary paradigms still struggle to accommodate (Cottell, 2010, p. 30). 


However ethnomusicology is finding a new voice for itself in the twenty-first century as it becomes more active and is applied to a wider range of forms and it continues to adopt a critical stance when necessary, towards record companies and their treatment of traditional music (Cottell, 2010, p. 30).


The relationship between ethnomusicology and the music industries, its positions, interests and concerns have been manifested in a variety of ways throughout the last centuries demonstrating the range and complexity of the interactions between music industries and traditional music making.


Reference:

Cottrell, S.J. (2010). Ethnomusicology and the Music Industries: an overview. Ethnomusicology Forum, 19(1), pp. 3-25. https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/eprint/3938/

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