Influenced by the theory of evolution, the comparative study of ethnomusicology in musicology period holds that by analyzing other folk music forms lower than western music, a historical overview of the development of world music can be formed. In other words, there are simple and complex music forms in the same music culture, and studying the process from "simple" to "complex" can reconstruct the history of music. With the development of social science, the idea of evolution and communication has been discarded. However, "reconstructing history" is still the main way to study the history of western ethnomusicology in the 1960s and 1970s, but the perspective has changed. Scholars began to pay attention to "how to reconstruct the history of music" and "how to reconstruct the history of music in different regions". In 1980s, ethnomusicology showed great interest in some new research fields, such as ethnic diaspora, globalization, race and gender.
The author thinks that "studying the music of the past" refers to studying music in the historical process, rather than just taking "the music of the past" as a historical point. In fact, ethnography written in recent years has paid attention to the historical topic-the past of music culture.
In 1990s, the historical research of ethnomusicology showed the characteristics of gradually changing from the research purport of reconstructing social history, cultural history and music history to the research perspective of interpreting history. Daniel newman put forward three modes of combining ethnomusicology with history: 1. The direction of music history to itself, that is, the history of music history; 2. Interpret the history of music, that is, as the theme of history; 3. Intrinsic music history, that is, "writing" with music. In the writing of music ethnography related to this, it also reflects the understanding of history. For example, Anthony Siegel's classic book "Why Su Ya Singing-A Study of Amazonian Musical Anthropology". In 2003, Reece once again put forward the three-dimensional analysis method of "the core theme of music ethnography": "time-space-metaphor." ?
To sum up, the historical research of western ethnomusicology has gone through the process from the reconstruction of social history and cultural history by musicals to the historical interpretation of musical cultural phenomena.
What is history? Is historical research objective or subjective? At the beginning of the 20th century, Robinson pointed out at the beginning of New History: "In a broad sense, all undertakings and traces related to human beings have been included in the historical scope since they appeared in the world. From describing the rise and fall of all ethnic groups to describing the habits and feelings of the most ordinary people? Academically speaking, history should include a. what happened in the past; B. History written in words, passed down from mouth to mouth or existing in memory; C. three aspects of historical research. Therefore, history includes gender, severity, size, age and seniority.
? Modern western historians no longer simply define history as "objective facts that happened in the past", but regard it as including objective events that happened in the past and historians' subjective understanding of events. Based on this understanding, historical research in the field of social sciences generally adopts a dialectical attitude of combining objectivity with subjectivity.
How to deal with the relationship between subjective choice and objective existence in historical research? Iggers, a modern historian, pointed out that there are professional standards and academic practice disciplines in modernist historical narrative. While acknowledging the subjectivity of historical historiography, many modern historians have not given up their pursuit of historical objectivity. Anthropologists also pointed out that the subjectivity of theoretical thinking cannot be an excuse to give up the pursuit of objective facts.
In addition, exploring the "intention" of the research object is also the research direction of ethnomusicology. Ethnomusicology researchers also hope to understand the local people's music consciousness through the investigation of musicians' behavior and music ontology, and to understand some local concepts through interviews with musicians.
Therefore, the research focus of ethnic music scholars can shift from "historical truth" to "historical memory", which is also a shift from pursuing objective facts to understanding historical carriers. ?
How to understand the present situation of traditional music cultural phenomena in historical changes? The author thinks that the research method of oral history plays an important role. ?
1. Recording oral history in collective memory: What is oral history? Tang Nuo Reich, an American oral historian, hit the nail on the head and explained: "In short, oral history is to collect oral memories and historical personal opinions by recording interviews." The advantages of oral history lie in: 1) the deficiency of supplementing historical documents; 2) It makes it possible for ordinary people to participate in the writing of history, which embodies the democracy of historical research; 3) Serve the reality and provide help for the formulation of social policies, the protection and management of cultural relics and the development of mass media; 4) Make a satisfactory analysis of recent political events that cannot be studied through written records. Similarly, the disadvantages of oral history are obvious, which can be summarized as two points: 1) selective memory, conscious forgetting, unconscious misreading or forgetting of oral history will all lead to untrue oral history; 2) Compared with the fixed written records of historical documents, oral history has the characteristics of fluidity and one-off, and there may be ambiguity or even ambiguity in interpretation. ?
However, researchers who pay attention to oral history methods point out that historical subjectivity exists in both oral history and historical documents. There are also selective records, unconscious errors or loss in historical documents. Therefore, oral history will not be more untrue than historical documents. Therefore, recording oral history in collective memory can become a historical research method of ethnomusicology.
2. Explain the significance of musical cultural phenomena in the historical process: the above orientation of historical research of ethnomusicology can make us believe that oral history in collective memory is helpful to understand the internal context of traditional musical history. The author sums up the significance of the research method of "explaining musical cultural phenomena in the course of history" into the following two aspects: First, through the explanation of previous musical cultural phenomena, we can better understand the existing state and the reasons for the continuation of today's musical culture. Secondly, explaining the cultural phenomenon of music in history will help us to rethink the concepts that seem to have become common sense in today's music research in the historical process.
Today's ethnomusicologists should not only take the collective memory of insiders as a "historical background" but also show the key word of "process" in the writing of musical ethnography. Therefore, ethnic music scholars need to think about the interpretation angle and research methods of relevant historical processes. Pay attention to the narrative, memory and interpretation of subject-theme, so that the concept of theme can be freely expounded. Researcher-theme interpretation is based on understanding the concept of theme, abandoning self-prejudice, listening to various personalized theme interpretations, and then using effective research methods to explain the choice of theme, the means of continuation and the interpretation angle of historical concepts. Such a "historical interpretation" can form a supplement to the study of China's traditional music history.