Perspectives in Systematic Musicology

Book excerpt: This special issue of Selected Reports in Ethnomusicology features thirteen articles representing empirical and philosophical approaches to music's cognitive, political, and aesthetic significance. The introduction, "Systematic Musicology Past and Present," provides an informative overview that locates the study of systematic musicology at UCLA within a rich tradition of interdisciplinary research. The articles in this volume address such diverse topics as music and film, tuning systems, notation, aesthetics and politics, and critical musicology. These articles exemplify the pluralistic perspectives of a field whose empirical arm intersects cognitive psychology, psychoacoustics, acoustics, and experimental semiotics, and whose philosophical arm intersects hermeneutics, phenomenology, and critical social theory. By contributing to a deeper understanding of music's importance as a creative human endeavor, these perspectives bring into focus questions of music's meaningfulness and communicability.