Perlman, Marc

Marc A Perlman

Associate Professor of Music

Overview

Marc Perlman, ethnomusicologist, received his Ph.D. from Wesleyan University. Before joining Brown University, he spent a year as a Fellow of the Society for the Humanities at Cornell University. He has also taught at Tufts University, and in Indonesia, where he was founding editor of the Journal of the Indonesian Musicological Society. His scholarly writings have appeared in the journals Ethnomusicology, Asian Music, Musical Quarterly, Postmodern Culture, Music Perception, Indonesia, Social Studies of Science, and in the revised edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. He has also published in Rhythm Music Magazine and the New York Times. He is a past president of the Northeast Chapter of the Society for Ethnomusicology.

Brown Affiliations

Music

Research

Research Overview

Professor Perlman's research interests include Indonesian music, the psychology of music, the history and ethnography of music theory, intellectual property law, the variety of musical taste cultures, the cultural impact of music technology, the social history of American music education, the Historical Performance movement in Western art music, Irish music, and Burmese music.

Research Statement

Research Description/Clinical Interests
My research interests range widely both in geography and disciplinary affiliation. I specialize in the musical traditions of Indonesia. I have extensive experience with the gamelan music of Central Java, but I have also studied the music of Bali and North Sumatra. I also have experience with the music of Ireland, India, and Burma (Myanmar), as well as interests in American popular music. My research in these areas is variously informed by anthropology, sociology, history, post-colonial studies, cultural studies, music theory, cognitive psychology, science and technology studies, and legal theory.

Funded Research

Internal research grants:
Brown University Salomon Research Award, 2000
Brown University Henry Merritt Wriston Fellowship, 2004

External research grants:
Fulbright-Hays Dissertation Research Grant (United States Department of Education), 1983
Southeast Asia Council (Association for Asian Studies) Isolated Scholar Research Award, 1993
Asian Cultural Council grant, 1995
American Philosophical Society grant, 2001
National Humanities Center Fellowship, 2001
University of Texas (Austin) Harrington Faculty Fellowship, 2001
Stanford Humanities Center Fellowship, 2001

Scholarly Work

"How a French Baroque Motet Is Like a Melanesian Folk Song." Andante.com, August 2005.

Unplayed Melodies: Javanese Gamelan and the Genesis of Music Theory. University of California Press.

"Golden Ears and Meter Readers: The Contest for Epistemic Authority in Audiophilia." Social Studies of Science 34(5):783-807.

"Consuming Audio: An Introduction to Tweak Theory." Pages 346-357 in René T. A. Lysloff and Leslie C. Gay, Jr. (eds.), Music and Technoculture (Wesleyan University Press).

"Indonesia VII: Sumatra." New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, pp. 344-351.

"Mode V, 4: South-east Asian pathet." New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition. Vol. 16, pp. 844-852.

"The Traditional Javanese Performing Arts in the Twilight of the New Order: Two Letters from Solo." Indonesia no. 68, pp. 1-37.

"Early-Music Talk Begins to Heat Up Again." New York Times Arts & Leisure section, Sunday 14 June 1998.

"The Social Meanings of Modal Practices: Status, Gender, History and Pathet in Central Javanese Music." Ethnomusicology 42(1):45-80.

"Conflicting Interpretations: Indigenous Analysis and Historical Change in Central Javanese Music." Asian Music 28(1):115-140.

"An Experimental Study of Internal Interval Standards in Javanese and Western Musicians." (With second author Carol L. Krumhansl.) Music Perception 14(2):95-116.

"American Gamelan in the Garden of Eden: Intonation in a Cross-Cultural Encounter." Musical Quarterly 78(3):484-529.

Background

Education and Training

Year	Degree	Institution
1994	PhD	Wesleyan University
1978	MA	Wesleyan University
1974	BA	Hampshire College

Honors and Awards

Awards for the book, Unplayed Melodies :
Deems Taylor Award (American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers)
Lewis Lockwood Award (American Musicological Society)
Wallace Berry Award (Society for Music Theory)
Alan Merriam Prize (Society for Ethnomusicology)
Finalist, Benda Prize (Association for Asian Studies)

Researchers@Brown