Contemplating Musicology from Japanese Perspectives

The task of musicology (Musikwissenschaft in German, musicologie in French, and ongakugaku in Japanese) in its proper sense is to study music of the past, present, and future regardless of region. For this purpose, various methods have been proposed and practiced. Subclassifications of musicology such as “historical” and “systematic” achieved the role of making researchers conscious of their methodologies. The fixed association of a particular subclassification or method of musicology with the treatment of a certain region should, however, be reconsidered. An example of such a fixation is to consider only Western musics to be objects of historical sub-divisions and to regard non-Western musics as objects of systematic subdivisions.

It is understandable that research on non-Western music was included in the systematic area of musicology, namely in comparative musicology, as historical research on non-Western musics was not widely shared at the early stage of musicology.

Let me take Japan as an example. In 1933 Japanese scholar Daigoro Arima submitted his dissertation “Japanische Musikgeschichte auf Grund der Quellenkunde” (History of Japanese music based upon source research) to the University of Vienna. Although this dissertation belongs to historical research as its title suggests, it was treated as one belonging to comparative musicology.

This fixation continued in the latter half of the twentieth century—even after the term comparative musicology had been replaced by the new term ethnomusicology. The correspondence between Japanese musics (as an example of non-Western musics) and comparative musicology has changed to that between Japanese musics and ethnomusicology.

Certainly, Japanese musics are objects of ethnomusicology. They should, however, equally qualify as objects of historical musicology. The following historical facts would be sufficient to qualify Japanese musics as objects of historical research: (1) written music theory was known since the eighth century; (2) the oldest extant music notation in Japan was written down prior to 747 AD; (3) the oldest printed musical notations in Japan are the ones for syômyô (Buddhist vocal music), from 1472, making them the oldest in the world; and (4) the first printed notation for the syamisen (shamisen) was published in 1664.

Although this is a case involving Japan, the same holds true for many other cultures. Considering that ethnomusicology is an important division of musicology and has contributed to understanding the relationship between human beings and music, ethnomusicology can and  should treat Western musics as its objects. Speaking more strictly, every culture can and should be studied from every division of musicology. The illogical fixation mentioned above simply derives from an ignorance of relevant facts.

Indeed, musicologists have the right to carry out research on any musics that belong to their own groups or the groups they study. At the same time, musicologists should remain keenly aware that other human groups also possess musics and those musics are objects of all of the sub-divisions of musicology. In short, musicologists must possess an acumen on the musics of others. In this connection, it should be strictly criticized that some American musicologists are abusing the term musicology as only for historical musicology about Western music, by excluding musics of other cultures from historical musicology.¹

Research on Musics of the Present

Historical musicology has long contributed to understanding musics of the past in terms of sounds, means of transmission (orality and literacy), notations, performance practice, musicians, concepts, etc. Its contribution is expected to become more significant than ever. In contrast, the musics of present-day societies have been studied by the behavioristic division of musicology (the term proposed by myself as behavioristische Musikwissenschaft²) which consists of ethnomusicology, the sociology of music, the psychology of music, and the research in music education. This division of musicology is also expected to contribute more greatly to the understanding of musics of the present.

The most important steps for studying the musics of the present, especially living traditions, is (1) to presume that any human group has musics, and (2) to engage with those musics. We must always be aware that there are many musics which have not been described, nor documented in terms of notations, sound and visual recordings, even in the present time in which the term world music is frequently used.

If researchers from Japan can make a contribution to the musicology of the world, it would be in terms of their strong awareness of the musics of others. Since they live in a society where the coexistence of different musics has been significant since the seventh century, they tend to be conscious of the fact that there are many musics which differ from each other in terms of tonal system, music scale, instrumentation, ideal sonority (vocal and instrumental), and concepts. Consequently, they tend to remain tolerant of musics that they do not practice and are convinced that others also possess musics.

“Fieldback”: Returning the Research Result to the Field

In order to assimilate the belief that others also possess musics, we have to make contact with their musics. In the 1970s and to some extent still in the 1980s, however, Asian peoples had few chances to contact the performing arts of other Asian peoples.

To change that situation, in 1974, with sponsorship from the Japan Foundation, Fumio Koizu­mi (1927–1983), Osamu Yamaguti (b. 1939), and I, started the long-term project “Asian Traditional Performing Arts” (ATPA). Its purpose was to construct a denser network of performing arts and their studies among Asian peoples. All of us were brought up in Japan and shared the same belief that Asian peoples could understand musics of other peoples. Considering the situation in the 1970s, we strategically used the motto “Asians observing and being observed by Asians.”

ATPA was held five times over fifteen years.³ Every invited group of Asian musicians and musicologists mutually performed and explained their music to other Asian groups. In the process, each group, with awareness of the similarities and differences with musics of other groups, became willing to maintain their musics as living traditions.

On the occasion of the first ATPA project in 1976, I coined the English word fieldback (not feedback as in cybernetics). By fieldback I meant the process of returning the research result back to the field.⁴ In the 1970s, we had observed traditional musicians in Japan remaining uninformed on the results of research on which they had collaborated with foreign scholars, and we decided to use fieldback as a principle of our project. Consequently, each participating group received a book including research on their music, together with LP records and 16 mm films of their performance. Later, I learned that these materials had helped their subsequent activities.

“Fieldback” Extended

In the period of ATPA, however, my concept of fieldback was rather restricted to the ethical relationship between researchers and performers. After ATPA, motivated by the potential extinction of certain musics, I felt the necessity to extend and transform this concept. Through my experience in Vietnam, I came to think that the process of keeping a tradition as a living one should be included in the mechanism of fieldback. In 1994, UNESCO and the Vietnamese Ministry of Culture asked Yamaguti and myself to inaugurate two projects for safeguarding the court music and minorities’ music of Vietnam that were seen to be in danger of extinction.⁵ In 2000, after finishing the first project for revitalizing court music, we launched the second project on the minorities: “Research and Video Documentation of Minorities’ Intangible Cultural Heritage of Vietnam” (RVMV). To our surprise, all recordings and videos taken in the course of this project were their first documentation.⁶ Considering that the number of ethnic minorities visited by RVMV was only a seventh of all, I must emphasize the fact that there are still many music cultures about which nothing is known to the outside world.

Many musics are disappearing and will disappear in the near future. Although their tradition-bearers have the latent capability and a strong will to sustain their traditions, the ubiquitous inequality of powers within a state and in the world makes it difficult.

As a task for musicology, we could describe and document the status quo of musics of a certain group. For this purpose, we could treat their musics as being in a stable state and transcribe and analyze them in detail. The results would be valuable as data demonstrating musics in a certain period. If the tradition-bearers of this group lose their musics, they can never realize their capability to develop and transform their music. In my opinion, it is also a responsibility of musicologists to help such tradition-bearers as a process of fieldback.

The Japanese used to shout “mottainai” (what a waste), when they witnessed something important be wasted. Wangari Maathai (1940–2011) of Kenya is using this Japanese word as a motto for environmental protection. It should also be applied to music. The Japanese mindset to tolerate the musics of others can be understood to have derived from mottainai, as this mentality kept many musics from extinction.

I would like to ask the members of the International Musicological Society to inherit and develop this mentality to secure the musical resources of human beings.

1. As far as I remember, since the 1980s American ethnomusicologists have seemingly admitted the abuse of musicology by Western historical musicologists into their discourse. Consequently, ethnomusicologists have tended to use the juxtaposition ethnomusicology and musicology. A more recent example is Timothy Rice’s declaration that ethnomusicology is not a part of musicology: Timothy Rice, Ethnomusicology: A Very Short Introduction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 16–17. This is understandable as his use of the term musicology simply refers to historical musicology about Western music. However, for the future of our studies in music, I have to express my dissatisfaction at such a usage, as we have to save the word musicology for musicology as a generic term.
2. Yosihiko (Yoshihiko) Tokumaru, “In welcher Musikwissenschaftsabteilung soll bzw. kann japanische Musik erforscht werden?” Musicologica Austriaca 6 (1986): 241–42. Repr., Yoshihiko Tokumaru, Musics, Signs and Intertextuality: Collected Papers (Tokyo: Academia Music, 2005), 79–80.
3. For more details, see Yosihiko Tokumaru, “The ATPA Project in Retrospect,” in Music in the Dialogue of Cultures: Traditional Music and Cultural Policy, ed. Max Peter Baumann (Wilhelmshaven: Florian Noetzel, 1991), 136–43. Repr., Tokumaru, Musics, Signs and Intertextuality, 111–20.
4. Yoshihiko Tokumaru, “On the Method of Comparison in Musicology,” in Asian Musics in an Asian Perspective, ed. Fumio Koizumi, Yoshihiko Tokumaru, and Osamu Yamaguti (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1977), 5. Repr., Tokumaru, Musics, Signs and Intertextuality, 11.
5. Osamu Yamaguti and Yosihiko Tokumaru, “A Pair of International Cooperative Endeavours Spanning the 20th and 21st Centuries: Empowerment of the Ex-Court Music Traditions and Training in Documentation of Performing Arts of Ethnic Minorities in Vietnam,” in Essays on Music Offered to Dr. Lee Hye-ku in Honor of His Hundredth Birthday, ed. Hwang Junyeon (Seoul: Minsokwon, 2008), 1009–29.
6. These videos are included in Sadao Nakajima, ed., Shape from Sound: Research and Documentation of Minorities’ Performing Arts in Vietnam (Kyoto: Daigoshobô, 2006).