In response to increased focus on the protection of intangible cultural heritage across the world, Music Endangerment offers
a new practical approach to assessing, advocating, and assisting the
sustainability of musical genres. Drawing upon relevant
ethnomusicological research on globalization and musical diversity,
musical change, music revivals, and ecological models for
sustainability, author Catherine Grant systematically critiques
strategies that are currently employed to support endangered musics. She
then constructs a comparative framework between language and
music, adapting and applying the measures of language endangerment as
developed by UNESCO, in order to identify ways in which language
maintenance might (and might not) illuminate new pathways to keeping
these musics strong. Grant's work presents the first in-depth,
standardized, replicable tool for gauging the level of vitality of music
genres, providing an invaluable resource for the creation and
maintenance of international cultural policy. It will enable those
working in the field to effectively demonstrate the degree to which
outside intervention could be of tangible benefit to communities whose
musical practices are under threat. Significant for both its insight and
its utility, Music Endangerment is an important contribution to the growing field of applied ethnomusicology, and will
help secure the continued diversity of our global musical traditions.Readership: Scholars
and students of ethnomusicology, intangible cultural heritage, or
cultural sustainability, as well as those interested in language
maintenance or sociolinguistics