Eileen Southern, 'The Black Perspective in Music': Documentation of Black music history.

摘要

On November 1, 1972, Eileen Southern and her husband, Joseph Southern, informed their colleagues of the planned launch of The Black Perspective in Music, a journal devoted solely to the musical activities of black Americans and Africans. They committed to publishing news about black musicians and their music from all over the world and to documenting of music history, musicology, music theories, music performance, and music reference sources. The Southerns published the journal from 1973-1990.;The purpose of this research is to understand the role The Black Perspective in Music has in documenting black music history. Following were the primary questions of this study; (1) What music genres are documented in the journal, (2) What was the sociopolitical context surrounding each genre, (3) Within each genre who were the authors and what were the topics, and (4) What is the relationship of the journal to music education. For this study, the four main categories of articles found in The Black Perspective in Music were (1) African music, (2) Classical/Concert music, (3) Blues/Ragtime/Jazz music, and (4) Miscellaneous articles. A content analysis was conducted to determine the subcategories of articles within each category. Then, each category was placed in sociopolitical context and relationship to music education.;In order to gain primary source information regarding the relationship of The Black Perspective in Music to music education, several experts who are active musicologists with specialties in black music were interviewed or surveyed. During the seventeen-year life of the journal, many researchers, authors, musicians, and performers had an opportunity to publish their findings, make arguments, and tell the history of a people who played important roles in the development of American music.;The journal has provided a great legacy to historians, teachers, and researchers. They, in turn, must assure that Southern's scholarly visions, groundbreaking contributions to black music history are preserved. Each succeeding generation must also document this vital black music history. In the future, as more research is conducted, articles are written, and books are published, all Americans may be well informed and there may be an improvement in the documentation of this very important part of music education.