Systematic and Comparative Musicology: Concepts, Methods, Findings

This volume presents essays on the theory, methodology, and disciplinary history of Systematic and Comparative Musicology as well as on concepts of current empirical research. Part 1 is devoted to Systematic Musicology which is viewed as a transdisciplinary approach to fundamental music research, on the one hand, and as a field of learning which is offered as an academic subject in universities, on the other. Part 1 also includes articles which illustrate modern research concepts many of which are based on experimental and other empirical methods as well as on computational and modelling approaches. The articles concern problems which range from acoustics and psychoacoustics to neuromusicology and music cognition. Part 2 addresses issues in Comparative Musicology and Ethnomusicology, for instance the relevance of comparative methods as applied to the study of non-western musical phenomena. Further, sound analysis combined with fieldwork as well as modelling based on ethnomathematical considerations are given special notice. Aspects of theory and disciplinary history are also covered in this section which moreover includes findings obtained from actual fieldwork.

The Editor: Albrecht Schneider, born in 1949, works in Systematic Musicology as well as in Comparative Musicology at the University of Hamburg. He has also taught as a visiting professor at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA), and in several European institutions. He is a founding member of the International Cooperation in Systematic and Comparative Musicology, and was co-editor of the scientific journal Systematische Musikwissenschaft - Systematic Musicology.

Contents : Albrecht Schneider: Foundations of Systematic Musicology: a study in history and theory - Oskar Elschek: Systematic Musicology - anachronism or challenge? A perspective on disciplinary and scientific developments - Marc Leman: Systematic Musicology at the crossroads of modern music research - Rolf Inge Godøy: Reflections on chunking in music - Daniel Müllensiefen/Geraint Wiggins/David Lewis: High-level feature descriptors and corpus-based musicology: Techniques for modelling music cognition - Klaus Frieler: Metrical circle map and metrical Markov chains - Christiane Neuhaus: Auditory Gestalt perception and the dissociation between pitch and time: ERP studies on processing musical sequence structure - Rolf Bader: Efficient auditory coding of a xylophone bar - Arne von Ruschkowski: Loudness war - Markus Abel: Synchronization of organ pipes - Andreas Beurmann/Albrecht Schneider: Acoustics of the harpsichord: a case study - Kai Lothwesen: Systematic Musicology and music education. An empirical investigation into research topics in German music education - Bruno Nettl: Comparative study and Comparative Musicology: comments on disciplinary history - Tiago de Oliveira Pinto: Music and the Tropics: on goals and achievements of Ethnomusicology in Brazil - Jukka Louhivuri: Lutheran hymn singing in African context: Lobe den Herren, den mächtigen König der Ehren vs. Rena Morena wa matla! - Gerhard Kubik: Zur Mathematik und Geschichte der afrikanischen time-line-Formeln - Ulrich Morgenstern: Der Skobarja von Velikie Lukje und angrenzende instrumental-vokale Formen im Gebiet Tver' (ethnische und ethnomusikalische Identität).