Prospects and Problems for Ecomusicology in Confronting a Crisis of Culture

The environmental crisis is not only the fault of failed engineering, bad science, ecological misunderstanding, poor accounting, and bitter politics. It is also a failure of holistic problem solving, interpersonal relations, ethics, imagination, and creativity. In short, the environmental crisis is a failure of culture.1 Humanist academics (particularly philosophers, literary scholars, and historians) work to understand the people, cultures, and ethical situations that created, perpetuate, attempt to solve, and face this crisis. In that context, musicologists have perspectives and insights to offer, especially because of the ubiquity of music, the importance that most people accord to it, and the communicative and emotional powers associated with music and the communities who make, enjoy, and consume it. There are good prospects for ecomusicology to contribute to the larger humanistic endeavor of understanding and addressing this crisis of culture, but such possibilities are tempered by problems and challenges. Although a longer list deserves to be enumerated, and numerous examples and lacunae could be proffered, I will outline just a half dozen items