At a time when musicians in the academy equate the term musicology with music history, the addition of the adjective qualifier systematic frequently produces more heat than light. This is due partly to the misunderstanding of the terms musicology and systematic.

According to the Harvard Dictionary, musicology is a term adopted from the French Musicologie and is the equivalent of the German term, Musikwissenschaft, both terms denoting the scientific study of music, or simply, the science of music. Haydon has said that ". . . musicology depends on direct musical experience or an immediate sensitivity to musical values, and the application of scientific methods in the discovery and organization of whatever we may think we can know about music."1

The word systematic has two meanings in this context. The first is that of being methodical in procedure. If this were the only meaning attached to the term, the implication would be that "other" musicology was unsystematic. Such an implication is not intended. On the contrary, the scientific method is as much the tool of the "other" musicologists as it is of the systematic musicologist.

The second meaning of systematic is that of comprising an ordered system. As Meyer has indicated, "We can learn to perceive and understand the world only because the events of the world are themselves constant and orderly enough to allow us to group and classify them. Were the phenomenal world in constant flux—or if it consisted of a host of independent variables—not only would it be impossible to "decode" the world (to discover the regularities), but probably we could not even guess that there were any regularities there to be discovered."2 In this sense, one is concerned with the inner consistency and the reproducibility of phenomena; with the identification of systematic events rather than of random ones. It is this definition which is the important and controlling one when we join the two words to form the title, Systematic Musicology.

Systematic musicology is neither a new term nor a parochial one. Haydon devotes 223 pages of his book, Introduction to Musicology, to systematic musicology.3 Reinecke, writing in Acta Musicologica in 1959, used the term systematischen Musikwissenschaft when referring to his research in the perception of musical sound.4

Nor is the term unique to the University of Washington. There are a few institutions incorporating training in systematic research methods within their musicology program. Some even use the term systematic musicology to designate courses surveying systematic research in music. One school organizes its graduate courses in musicology according to three specializations: historical musicology, systematic musicology, and ethnomusicology.

There are essentially three reasons why a special degree program in systematic musicology has been developed at the University of Washington. First, it appears that musicology departments which acknowledge the validity of systematic musicology are still oriented, in the main, to the humanistic approach using subjective judgment in the acquisition of data. The research methodology courses offered by these institutions are essentially bibliographical in focus. The incidence of systematic research in these circumstances is the exception rather than the rule.

Second, nearly all programs of systematic research in music today are in music education departments and thus strongly oriented to problems related to public school music. As an educator, I am supportive of this kind of research activity being promoted in departments of music education. As a musician, I am aware that many of the urgent questions and problem areas which face us in music are those which might not get the early attention of the music educator, but will and do get the attention of performers, theorists, composers or conductors. This does not mean that the concerns of the music teacher are of less importance than those of the conductor nor that they are any less relevant to the field of music. It only means that the concerns are different and will probably not be inclusive.

Third, many problem areas in music can only be examined by means of systematic research. The experiment, little used in musical research in comparison to other research techniques, is the only means for obtaining evidence from which valid conclusions can be made when we concern ourselves with musical questions dealing with causal relationships. A permissive attitude toward systematic research will produce less participation by our potential scholars than a program which actively encourages their involvement.

For this reason, the Ph.D. program in systematic musicology at the University of Washington addresses itself to a broad base of concerns that may include the performer, the theoretician, the music teacher (whether elementary, secondary or in higher education; whether classroom, studio or performance group), the composer, and the conductor. To accomplish this, intensive systematic research training is provided. Only part of this training occurs in classes. The major portion must occur in an actual research setting where the students can try out and refine their research techniques. This necessitates an ongoing systematic research program in the institution—a program with a specialized focus but admitting a broad base of concerns.

This ongoing program in the School of Music at the University of Washington is illustrative of the character of systematic musicology. Our research is focused upon the processes of aural perception of music in context. Such research requires interaction with subject areas outside of music, for example psychology, speech science, and psychophysics, to name a few. In particular, investigation is underway to determine the effect of the musical structure upon the perceptual process. One study is examining metric variance in musical performance and its perceptual acceptance. Using Tanner's theory of signal detection technique, an attempt is being made to identify the effect of musical structure upon the perception of temporal irregularity. Recognizing that anticipation or expectancy has an effect upon the perceptual process, another study is underway to identify the precise nature of this function and its relation to various aspects of musical structure.

Waldo S. Pratt has said that "it is likely that no one person, in these days of advanced specialism, can hope to be a full master of details in all branches of what has been called 'musicology' . . . , or to be engaged in fruitful original discovery in many lines."5 It is in full awareness of this contention that our program in systematic musicology at the University of Washington has limited its scope to basic research in aural perception of contextual music. It is quite reasonable to expect that most of the early dissertations from our institution will reflect this emphasis. This should be considered a desirable approach and not unnecessarily limiting upon a student's intellectual curiosity. In the same way that no one person can be a full master of all branches of musicology, no institution can provide a full preparation in all the possible and important areas of music begging systematic research.

 

THE DEGREE PROGRAM

General admission requirements to the doctoral program in systematic musicology at the University of Washington are similar to those at most institutions of higher education. Because of the interdisciplinary nature of the program, students are admitted to it who have shown an inquisitive awareness of fields outside music, if not an actual involvement in one or more of them. We desire to admit students with a promising systematic research potential but this is a difficult potential to assess unless the student has written a master's thesis. For this reason, a great deal of responsibility is placed upon counseling during the first quarter or two.

Admission to the program in systematic musicology constitutes only the beginning of work on pre-candidacy requirements. Although we don't call it that, the first quarter or two could be considered a probationary period. If the student fails to show promise in his initial course in research methods he is advised to explore an area other than systematic musicology. Promising students are encouraged to continue their academic preparation for the General Examination—the access to doctoral candidacy. This academic preparation consists of three parts: training in systematic research methods, participation in seminars selected from the areas of music theory, music history, music teaching, and ethnomusicology, and study in departments outside music.

Students begin their research training in a course titled Systematic Musicology. In this, the scientific approach is studied, and its potential and limitations as a means of obtaining knowledge in musical problems are examined. Certain fundamental statistical concepts are introduced and applied as the students critique reports of musical research. The culminating project for each student in the course is the development and basic design of a research proposal. In some instances this proposal will be reshaped and refined and will become the student's dissertation proposal. The second research course, Experimental Design in Musical Research, explores means for controlling internal and external validity of the data obtained in a musical experiment.

In addition to the two formal courses in systematic research methods, each student is encouraged to assist in research projects underway in the school. As students demonstrate research competency, they are eligible for research assistantships, and their subsequent research activities will normally relate directly to their dissertation research. The close supervision provided in this laboratory setting is probably the most important aspect of a student's research training, for what operates in theory may not always operate in practice, especially in research with human subjects interacting with music.

The student must take a minimum of 27 hours from seminars and courses in music. He is also counseled to undertake independent study in those areas of music which might pose difficulty for him on his General Examination.

Again as in most Ph.D. programs, the student must take a portion of his work outside the major field. Students in systematic musicology take at least 25 quarter hours outside of music and are strongly urged to include courses in Psychology of Learning and Psychology of Perception because of the high relevance which these courses bear to nearly all systematic research in music.

Before a student is eligible to take his General Examination, he must demonstrate a reading knowledge in two foreign languages. German is required because of the large amount of systematic research literature in music reported in that language. French is recommended as the second language but with the approval of the supervisory committee, another language may be selected.

Another important research tool for the systematic musicologist is statistics. Beyond the basic statistical concepts introduced in the Systematic Musicology course, the student is required to develop a fairly high degree of working competence in inferential statistics. Advanced statistics courses are taken by the student from any one of several departments at the University. No proficiency exam in statistics is given. However, the first year in systematic research methods provides considerable opportunities to examine the student informally. Those who would fail to demonstrate an ability to effectively use inferential statistics in this situation would not be encouraged to pursue the doctorate.

Before the student takes the General Examination, his dissertation research proposal must be accepted by his supervisory committee. Our purpose for requiring this is twofold: first, we obtain an additional measure of the student's capability to do systematic research; and second, we reduce the chances that the student will fail to complete his dissertation. In regard to the latter, many candidates remain only candidates because they do not settle upon a research topic. If the student has this hurdle out of the way before he takes his Generals, he can begin his research immediately after achieving Candidacy.

The Candidacy exams are both written and oral. The written part examines the student in his major area in music (e.g., performance, theory, music teaching, etc.) and at least one minor area of music. The student is also examined in the area outside music which is related to his research topic (e.g., psychophysics, education, speech science, etc.). The oral examination is intended to reveal aspects of the dissertation research proposal which are weak, but may also be an extension of the questioning on the written examination. Upon successful completion of the General Examination, the student is admitted to Candidacy. Presumably the remainder of his work will be devoted to conducting the research and reporting on it in the form of the dissertation.

The Ph.D. in Systematic Musicology is a new program at the University of Washington. It is now in operation pretty much as outlined but because it is new it should be regarded somewhat as a pilot program subject to modification.

By instituting this degree program, the University of Washington echoes Pratt when he wrote, "It is not too much to hope that more disciplined scholars in the musical circle will so familiarize themselves with the total range . . . [of musicology] that they can in their own persons and work commend the science of music to the attention of both the scientific and the artistic worlds."6 By complementing historical research with systematic research, it is reasonable to expect that musicologists will more nearly achieve this end.

1Glen Haydon, Introduction to Musicology. New York: Prentice Hall, 1941, p. 1.

2Leonard B. Meyer, Music The Arts and Ideas. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1967, p. 273.

3Haydon, Introduction to Musicology.

4Hans Peter Reinecke, "Stellung und Grenzen akustischer Forschung innerhalb der systematischen Musikwissenschaft," Acta Musicologica, XXXI, No. 2, 1959, pp. 80-86.

5Waldo S. Pratt, "On Behalf of Musicology," The Musical Quarterly, I, No. 1, January, 1915, p. 16.

6Pratt, "On Behalf of Musicology," p. 16.