Ethnomusicology: A Very Short Introduction

Ethnomusicology, an academic discipline founded in 1950, has been defined as the study of the music of others. This definition, at once whimsical and very nearly true, is incomplete. Many of its strongest threads have emerged because a person or a people have wanted to understand themselves, their history, and their identity. This book examines the history of these impulses to study ourselves and others.

Timothy Rice is Professor of Ethnomusicology and the Director of the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music at the University of California, Los Angeles. His books include May it Fill Your Soul: Experiencing Bulgarian Music and Music in Bulgaria: Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture. A leader in the field, he is a former editor of the journal Ethnomusicology and a past president of the Society for Ethnomusicology.