ABSTRACT
Chapter 6 concludes the study with a discussion of the purpose and consequences of structural analysis of an aural musical tradition. The chapter revisits the role of transcription in articulating the author’s cognitive processes and structures in this complex music form, those that have enabled him to know, retain, perform, and teach the material, and to arrive at the point of being accepted as a garamut player by the people of Baluan. The author situates aspects of his understanding against similar concepts and structures that he has encountered in the study of numerous other musical traditions. The chapter extends into a consideration of the ethnomusicologist’s role in the transmission of the music studied, both within the source culture and externally to it. The author recounts particular instances in the course of his fieldwork in Baluan, where he has observed the transmission of ideas that have arisen as a direct consequence of his actions in that place, and further addresses significant aspects of his teaching of the material at tertiary institutions in Sydney. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the nature of continuity and change in an aural musical culture such as that of Baluan.
