back to text

Mantle Hood "The Ethnomusicologist"

[...] If it is difficult to describe the typical student in terms of background, it is relatively easy to identify certain traits of character and interests that tend to set him apart from some of his colleagues concentrating on other fields. He is inclined to be highly sensitive to other human beings, to respect their scales of values and their behavior, even if these are not compatible with his own. He is likely to have a latent or realized suspicion that everything in print about music is not necessarily true, even in some instances is necessarily not true. He has a healthy curiosity about the new and the unknown and a talent for stepping outside himself or the self he thinks he is, long enough to take a sympathetic look at the unknown. His interests tend to be widespread, and he applies himself to them with intensity and enthusiasm, whether it is cooking or poetry or puppetry or stamp collecting. He has for the senior scholar an unabashed admiration, founded on the security of frequent differences of opinion with him. He has a deep love of the sheer sound and musicality of music, and he likes to make it. He is both a doer and something of a dreamer. He has strong tendencies toward romanticising and a clear pragmatic streak that keeps him from losing his balance - most of the time. He has an analytical turn of mind but secretly half-believes in myths. He is very much an individual. Above all, his liking for music is closely tied to his liking for people; his interest in the one is inseperable from the other. He shows restraint in finding his way in new worlds and fans the flame of friendship gently with an intuitive avoidance of barging in where delicate values may be involved. In the most literal sense, he is a humanist attuned to the world of the arts."
 

Mantle Hood "The Ethnomusicologist"
Chapter One MUSICAL LITERACY "One Either Has Them Or Has Them Not"
UCLA 1971 p 29