Merriam, Alan P(arkhurst)

(b Missoula, MT, 1 Nov 1923; d nr Warsaw, 14 March 1980). American ethnomusicologist. He took the BA at Montana in 1947, then began studies in anthropology under M.J. Herskovits and Richard A. Waterman at Northwestern University (MM 1948, PhD 1951). After teaching anthropology at Northwestern University (1953–4; 1956–62) and at the University of Wisconsin (1954–6), he became professor (1962) and then chairman of the anthropology department at Indiana University (1966–9), which under his directorship became a leading research centre in ethnomusicology. He was also co-founder (1952) and president (1963–5) of the Society for Ethnomusicology whose journal he edited (Ethnomusicology Newsletter, 1952–7; Ethnomusicology, 1957–8). He died in an aeroplane crash.

Merriam's extensive field research among the Flathead people of Montana (1950, 1958) and the Basongye and Bashi people of Zaïre (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) and Burundi (1951–2, 1959–60, 1973) resulted in a series of major articles on African music, and in Ethnomusicology of the Flathead Indians (1967), which became an exemplar for ethnomusicological studies after 1970. His most important work, The Anthropology of Music (1964), argued for a tripartite model for ethnomusicological research involving investigation of the sounds themselves as well as of the behaviour (social, physical and verbal) and the conceptualizations of musicians and audience; this approach has had lasting relevance. Defining ethnomusicology as the anthropological study of music, it is arguably the most influential work in ethnomusicology published after 1950, stressing the importance of cultural and social factors in any investigation of the processes of creation, aesthetics, and the training and acculturation of performers and audience. He also wrote on jazz, American music and Afro-Caribbean music, but his most significant contribution remains his discussions of the theoretical and conceptual problems in ethnomusicology. A dedicated teacher and a visiting lecturer at many institutions, he was largely responsible for the eventual acceptance of ethnomusicology at North American educational institutions.

WRITINGS

‘Flathead Indian Instruments and their Music’, MQ, xxxvii (1951), 368–75

with R.J. Benford: A Bibliography of Jazz (Philadelphia, 1954)

‘Some Texts of the Bashi (Congo)’, AfM, i/1 (1954), 44–56

with S. Whinery and B.G. Fred: ‘Songs of a Rada Community in Trinidad’, Anthropos, li (1956), 157–74

‘Characteristics of African Music’, JIFMC, xi (1959), 13–19

‘An Annotated Bibliography of Theses and Dissertations in Ethnomusicology and Folk Music Accepted at American Universities’, EthM, iv (1960), 21–35

‘Ethnomusicology: Discussion and Definition of the Field’, EthM, iv (1960), 107–14

‘The African Idiom in Music’, Journal of American Folklore, lxxv (1962), 120–45

‘The Epudi: a Basongye Ocarina’, EthM, vi (1962), 175–80

A Prologue to the Study of African Arts (Yellow Springs, OH, 1962)

‘Purposes of Ethnomusicology: an Anthropological View’, EthM, vii (1963), 206–13

‘Songs of the Gêge and Jesha Cults of Bahia, Brazil’, Jb für musikalische Volks- und Völkerkunde, i (1963), 100–35

The Anthropology of Music (Evanston, IL, 1964; It. trans., 1983)

‘Music and the Origin of the Flathead Indians: a Problem in Culture History’, Music in the Americas: Bloomington, IN, 1965, 129–38

with F. Gillis: Ethnomusicology and Folk Music: an International Bibliography of Dissertations and Theses (Middletown, CT, 1966)

Ethnomusicology of the Flathead Indians (Chicago, 1967)

with F. Garner: ‘Jazz: the Word’, EthM, xii (1968), 373–96

‘The Ethnographic Experience: Drum-Making among the Bala (Basongye)’, EthM, xiii (1969), 74–100

‘Ethnomusicology Revisited’, EthM, xiii (1969), 213–29

African Music on LP: an Annotated Discography (Evanston, IL, 1970)

The Arts and Humanities in African Studies (Bloomington, IN, 1972)

‘The Bala Musician’, The Traditional Artist in African Societies, ed. W.L. d'Azevedo (Bloomington, IN, 1973), 250–81

An African World: the Basongye Village of Lupupa Ngye (Bloomington, IN, 1974)

‘Anthropology and the Dance’, New Dimensions in Dance Research: Tucson, AZ, 1972, ed. T. Comstock [Dance Research Annual, vi (1974), 9–27

Culture History of the Basongye (Bloomington, IN, 1975)

‘Ethnomusicology Today’, CMc, no.20 (1975), 50–66

‘Definitions of “Comparative Musicology” and Ethnomusicology”: an Historical-Theoretical Perspective’, EthM, xxi (1977), 189–204

African Music in Perspective (New York, 1982)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

A.S. Yama: ‘Merriam's Legacy: a Holistic Approach to African Music’, JJS, vi/1 (1979), 95–100

C. Card, ed.: A Tribute to Alan P. Merriam (Bloomington, IN, 1981) [incl. complete list of writings and discography, 237–66]

S. Wild: ‘Alan P. Merriam, Professor’, EthM, xxvi (1982), 91–8 [obituary]

B. Nettl: ‘Alan P. Merriam, Scholar and Leader’, ibid., 99–105 [obituary]

PAULA MORGAN/BRUNO NETTL