You’re probably familiar with the concept of bi-lingualism, which is where someoneone is fluent in 2 languages (for example, English and Indonesian, or Chinese and Japanese). But did you also know there’s a similar concept in music, called bi-musicality? This is where one person is fluent within 2 musical systems. You may have heard the notion that “music is a universal language”, but this could not be further from the truth! There are many “musical languages” out there, and these are what are studied by ethnomusicologists.

So, what is a musical system or language? The dominant musical system in the world is what is commonly called “Western Music”, which is the sort of music that people like Mozart and Beethoven wrote. It’s foundation is tonic-dominant harmonies, the 12 notes of an octave which is repeated over and over on a piano. Most pop, orchestral, film, television, and video game music that you listen to falls under this very broad category. But of course, there is lots of music which blends with these musics (also known as hybrid or fusion), and music which is totally separate from these genres. My research looks at Balinese gamelan music, which isn’t tuned to the equal temperament of Western music, and doesn’t follow the typical time signatures and harmonies that you hear in the above genres.

In the early twentieth century, ethnomusicologists tended to only study non-Western musics from a Western perspectives (now, there are more varied perspectives and a broader definition of ethnomusicology, but that is an article for another time). Additionally, they often studied these musics from afar; without engaging with the musical practices of the instruments, i.e. reading about the instruments instead of playing them. In 1960, Mantle Hood proposed the notion of “bi-musicality”, which basically says that the only way to learn a musical instrument and system is to play it. This seems very obvious, but it was obviously something that needed to be said. Hood then proceeded to acquire a gamelan from Java, which was replicated by other universities in the USA, UK, and even Australia – all because he studied Indonesian musics! In Western education, this is how we prioritise music learning – we sing in early music education, then play recorders and guitars and eventually the wider spectrum of orchestral instruments.

Nowadays, bi-musicality is considered an outdated term, and I think this is for two reasons. The first is that it is so obvious and engrained in our education systems now (mainly at a tertiary level). It is hard to develop a theory when it is so established, and there don’t immediately seem to be any good alternatives. The second reason is that, and Hood admits this in his original article, bi-musicality is so hard to achieve. Learning a music system doesn’t just require a knowledge of the music itself, but also of the accompanying language, culture, literature, history, and so on. While it also helps to understand these when learning a language, it is possible to learn a language without an in-depth knowledge of these aspects. It is far harder, in my opinion, to learn a musical system without these. Language helps foster collaboration. Literature and history help inform performance practice. Bi-musicality, then, is so difficult to achieve.

My research looks at, in part, new ways of implementing bi-musicality, particularly in the modern age where we have access to virtual instruments and online collaboration. I hope to write more about this over the year as I get more research completed and make progress on my PhD.