Vol. 5 • No. 1 • 2021

A Crazy IMS Idea

Edited by Lukas Christensen and Daniel K. L. Chua

For this issue of IMS Musicological Brainfood, we asked the members of the IMS Directorium (the Governing Board) to write no more than seven sentences on the following question:

In your opinion, what word or concept would you like to see removed from music scholarship today?

Why did we set this challenge? Because this is a great opportunity for a global snapshot of musicology. The IMS Directorium is a wide-ranging group from different parts of the world and with different disciplinary proclivities. A commonly used word in a different location or context may expose all kinds of dubious things that we often fail to see. The idea is not simply about removing a word or concept: the underlying purpose, whether taken seriously or in jest, is to explore how a commonly used term or concept can sometimes limit thought, or send research in dubious directions, or have unintended consequences, or is simply so overused that it abuses the word itself and prevents it from operating as it should.

With only seven sentences available to each writer (in some cases, this rule was slightly bent), the task we set is designed to take risk, pique thought, and create a small synaptic explosion in the reader that will be for the betterment of musicology! Of course, you don’t have to abide by these statements, or take them too seriously, but we hope they will be engaging.

To top off this crazy IMS idea, we listed the contributions alphabetically according to the authors’ countries of residence (as spelled in German).