ABSTRACT
This article attempts to assess the general state of research in the field of ethnomusicology. It pretends to be nothing more than a personal statement of opinion, and I find myself making it with considerable anxiety, for our field has become so large, in terms of its scholarly, human, and musical populations, that it is impossible for one person to control the data of the entire field in a way which makes feasible a good evaluation of recent developments and current affairs. I often look back to my student days, in the late 1940s and early 1950s, when a candidate coming into the doctoral examination might be expected to know nearly all of the significant publications in the field. Now, students of mine grow despondent when confronted with the need to know the whole field. I therefore approach my task humbly, for I certainly cannot claim to know, with any sort of even emphasis, the entire recent literature, and you will no doubt sense that I am best acquainted with what has been published in North America. I therefore intend my remarks to be suggestive, the basis for discussion, rather than in any way definitive. And the reader may find my remarks rather more pessimistic than he might expect; but salvation does not lie in self-congratulation.
