An Ethnomusicological Perspective to Soundscape Studies

Ethnomusicologists generally use the concepts of sound and soundscape referring to timbre, the sonic characteristics of a specific music genre, or the musical characteristics of a region or society. However, ethnomusicologists who draw their analytical perspectives from the Soundscape School investigate the sounds (musics, languages, silences, environmental sounds and noises) as related parts of a whole, and analyze the sonic practices in terms of these relations. These works have lead to a further discussion in ethnomusicology on the limits and problems of music as a concept. This paper aims to briefly trace the history of the relationship of ethnomusicology to soundscape studies and raises questions about the boundaries of music concep