Toward a New Comparative Musicology
Comparative musicology has the potential to contribute greatly to our understanding of the evolution of culture. Comparative musicology flourished during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but declined after World War II due in part to its reliance on questionable models of progressive evolution. Its successor, ethnomusicology, generally avoided cross-cultural comparison and evolutionary theory. We propose a return to the forgotten agenda of comparative musicology, but one that is updated with modern scientific method and evolutionary theory. We outline five key areas and debates where comparative musicological data can contribute to an interdisciplinary understanding of the evolution of culture : 1) classification, 2) mechanisms of cultural evolution, 3) migration, 4) universals, and 5) biological evolution. We suggest that examining the coevolutionary relationships between musics, languages, and genes will provide a promising avenue for exploring these areas in future research.