The Music-Network: A Model for the Organization of Music Concepts
Ellen Koskoff · Ethnomusicology · 1982
One of the basic interests of ethnomusicologists has been discovering and understanding shared behavior. Generally, learning about a particular culture's has involved documenting and analyzing those aspects of culture that many individuals have in common. A general concept, eventually emerges from the collected experiences, behaviors, attitudes and beliefs of those individuals whose cultures we study. While it is true that individuals of the same culture tend to share to a great extent their most basic and general concepts of music, a great deal of variety exists in response to questions concerning specific and behaviors. Further, differences also occur between what may be regarded by many informants as an ideal concept and what actually takes place in individual thinking or action. Although such variation may result in part from basic problems of ethnosemantics (Conklin 1969, Black 1969, Frake 1969, among others), or in the problems inherent in expressing music in speech (Seeger 1971), they are probably more significantly linked to basic differences in the ways individuals organize and give meaning to concepts. This paper examines some of the cognitive structures used by individuals to organize information; the term music-network will be used here to designate such structures. The term network is used as in information theory (see Amosov 1967:52 and others). Examining these music-networks can shed light on the intricate relationship between the cultural and individual meanings of music. People develop a cluster of concepts that comprises a highly general concept of music; this concept is used to differentiate certain sounds from others, such as speech or noise. Hearing, remembering, and learning what is involves the ability to process sounds and to organize this information into logical and meaningful systems (Wallace 1962, Neisser 1967, Lindsay and Norman 1972, Anderson 1975). In fact, such acts as remembering or reproducing are evidence that these systems exist. Understanding what is also involves engaging in behavior, developing attitudes and beliefs concerning music, and experiencing