Ethnomusicology

These teaching and training guidelines provide practical advice and insights into the process of conducting a local-level field documentation project. These guides cover essential topics such as: project planning; research ethics from the perspectives of the fields of folklore, anthropology, ethnomusicology and museum studies; and intellectual property policies, law and use with special reference to the work of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Geneva, Switzerland. Other subjects include: interviewing tips and techniques; writing field notes and producing summaries and logs of recordings; participant permissions and release forms; and links to sites that will help you understand digital recording technologies.

Fourth Edition, 2016. By Stephen Winick and Peter Bartis. While this book prioritizes the documentation of folklife, by which we mean traditional culture and heritage, the guidelines offered here for interviewing and documentation apply to a broad range of topics.

Digital Omnium provides practical advice about oral history, archives and digital technologies and features regular posts on topics relating to recording, archiving, digital preservation and online dissemination of oral histories.

by Marcia Herndon and Norma McLeod. Norwood, PA: Norwood Editions, 1983.
In the MUSIC LIBRARY: ML3798 .H45 1983

by Jennifer C. Post, Mary Russell Bucknum, Laurel Sercombe. Bloomington, IN: Society for Ethnomusicology, Indiana University, c1994. In the MUSIC LIBRARY: ML3798 .M3 1994

Written by some of the most noted experts in the field, the included texts are designed to give you the latest information on best practices in collecting, curating, and disseminating oral histories. As micro-essays and case studies, the texts are designed to be easily updated and revised as technologies change.

The Australia Council for the Arts’ protocol guides spell out clearly the legal as well as the ethical and moral considerations for the use of Indigenous cultural material. These guides recognise that in Indigenous Australian communities the artist is a custodian of culture, with obligations as well as privileges. The five guides in the suite are: Media arts, Music, Performing arts, Visual arts, Writing.

A good overview from the UCLA Library Center for Oral History Research.

The automated Ask Doug interface asks a set of questions that takes you through a series of decisions to some of the best possible choices for your particular needs.

Deciding on whether to use digital audio or video for your project can be a critical juncture. The included essays will help you to think about the choice and then to guide you to make the best decisions about the right equipment.

"Is there a definitive field recorder we think you should buy? No. Do we have opinions about all the choices that are out there? You bet. See a summary of our humble opinions."

Note: specific field recorder recommendations are now mostly out of date, but the general advice is still good.

The Protocols are intended to guide libraries, archives and information services in appropriate ways to interact with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the communities which the organisations serve, and to handle materials with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander content.

An affiliate of the American Library Association (ALA), the American Indian Library Association is a membership action group that addresses the library-related needs of American Indians and Alaska Natives. Members are individuals and institutions interested in the development of programs to improve Indian library, cultural, and informational services in school, public, and research libraries on reservations. AILA is also committed to disseminating information about Indian cultures, languages, values, and information needs to the library community

Developed in order to promote the role of archives in meeting the administrative, educational, and cultural needs of Aboriginal communities, and to foster the establishment of archives in those communities.

ATALM is an international non-profit organization that maintains a network of support for indigenous programs, provides culturally relevant programming and services, encourages collaboration among tribal and non-tribal cultural institutions, and articulates contemporary issues related to developing and sustaining the cultural sovereignty of Native Nations.

IASA Special Publication No. 6

First Archivist Circle's best professional practices for culturally responsive care and use of American Indian archival material held by non-tribal organizations.

Ethnomusicology is the study of music in its cultural context. Ethnomusicologists approach music as a social process in order to understand not only what music is but why it is: what music means to its practitioners and audiences, and how those meanings are conveyed ... all ethnomusicologists share a coherent foundation in the following approaches and methods:
1) Taking a global approach to music (regardless of area of origin, style, or genre).
2) Understanding music as social practice (viewing music as a human activity that is shaped by its cultural context).
3) Engaging in ethnographic fieldwork (participating in and observing the music being studied, frequently gaining facility in another music tradition as a performer or theorist), and historical research.