Comparative study of traditional polyphony

Research Topics

Although comparative studies became unfashionable and sometimes even unacceptable in mainstream ethnomusicology post-WW2, for most of my life I have been interested in cross-cultural studies of vocal polyphony. I believe if you want to research the origins of the phenomenon of vocal polyphony (or any other “big” topic of ethnomusicology), you must first be aware of the richness of musical traditions from all over the world.

You can find here several texts from my writings on this subject:

Here is a section from the book “Who Asked the first Question. The origins of human choral singing, Intelligence, Language and Speech”, Section 2: Comparative Perspectives.

[...] Being among the biggest themes of musicology and ethnomusicology for more than a century, the origins, distribution and typology of traditional vocal polyphony has been discussed by numerous authors in numerous publications. Before we start discussing the comparative prospects of the study of vocal polyphonic traditions in the second part of this book, I would like to bring to the reader’s attention a few ideas on the comparative aspect of the study of traditional polyphony. These ideas come from different scholars from different countries, schools and generations, including the founders of ethnomusicology and the younger generation of ethnomusicologists from different regions of the world [... Continue reading]

Here is a similar section: Singing in Human Cultural History Chapter 2, from the Book "Why do People Sing? Music in Human Evolution".

[...] In the first chapter we discussed the worldwide distribution of choral singing styles. We only had occasional references to important historical sources. This chapter is fully dedicated to the historical issues of human group singing, so we will be going back in the history and prehistory of human musical cultures. Of course, unlike the first chapter, which was an overview of currently available facts, this chapter will be mostly based on a hypothetical reconstruction of the history of human singing. As such, it will gradually prepare a steady basis for tackling the origins of the phenomenon of human choral singing. The circle of issues we are going to discuss brings us to the necessity of the wide use of comparative methodology. Many of my colleagues are aware that comparative studies are often viewed in contemporary ethnomusicology with great suspicion and sometimes even animosity, so I think before going into the main part of this chapter we need to discuss, at least briefly, the history of comparative studies in ethnomusicology [... Continue reading]

Here is a conference paper dedicated to the topic: “Comparative study of Traditional Polyphony: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow.” Edited in the Sixth International Symposium on Traditional Polyphony, held at the International Research Centre of Traditional Polyphony at Tbilisi State Conservatory on September 24-29, 2012.

[...] Polyphonic singing is one of the most mysterious phenomenon of human musical culture, so it was natural that the search for the origins of polyphony became one of the central research topics in the history of musicology. We can say that after the problem of the origins of music, the problem of the origins of polyphony is the second most important topic of musicology and evolutionary musicology. Discussions about the origins of polyphony have never stopped, although during some periods of the development of our discipline this topic was sometimes more, and sometimes less active. Most importantly for our topic, the study of this problem was always directly connected to the comparative research methodologies, as any serious research of the origins of traditional polyphony naturally requires knowledge of the worldwide distribution and comparison of this phenomenon [... Continue reading]