Just as historians in their quest to understand the construction and transmission of meaning, musicologists are turning to new inquiries into cultural representations and their social dynamics, while remaining aware of music’s distinctive “register” of representation as an abstract language and a performing art.
I’ve encountered my fair share of monstrous academic prose, but that puppy ranks right down there with the ghastliest. And it’s a catalog blurb for an Oxford University Press publication, no less. Let’s see if I can dismantle this verbal booby trap and extract whatever boobies it holds, if any.
First clause, up to the comma. It needs a good old indicative verb in place of that silly faux-heroic “in their quest.” Let’s try: Just as historians seek to understand the construction and transmission of meaning. But while the clause is syntactically clearer, I’m still befuddled about what it is historians are seeking to understand. One possibility: Just as historians try to figure out how people actually understand other people…
But who cares? The sentence is about musicologists, not historians. The clause is filler. Delete it.
And what’s with that third clause, the one starting with …while remaining aware? Once again I am obliged to take a blind stab at the meaning, but I’ll give it my best shot: allowing that music history is mostly about music. If I’m anywhere near correct, then the third clause is filler as well.
That leaves us with musicologists are turning to new inquiries into cultural representations and their social dynamics.
I suppose it would be unforgiveably twitty of me to pipe up with “Oh, musicologists have social dynamics, do they?” So I’ll resist the temptation. Back to word-whacking.
Typical of gobbledegook vendors, the author has pumped up a simple concept with lotsa words. I stick a pin into musicologists are turning to new inquiries into and it turns out to mean musicologists are studying.
That leaves cultural representations and their social dynamics. Tough nut, that. My best guess is that it’s a word-infested stand-in for how people hear music.
So I think I have it deciphered. Here goes:
Musicologists are studying how people hear music.
Oh, they are, are they?
But they needn’t have gone to all that bother. All they had to do was come to me, and I would have told them all about how people hear music.
This is what I would tell them:
People listen to it.
And there you are. The book being plugged, by the way, is “The Oxford Handbook of the New Cultural History of Music.” It is 640 pages long, contains 37 illustrations and 41 halftones, and it costs $150.00.
But you don’t need it, because thanks to Free Composition, you’re already an expert.