Critical Review #6: Shelemay 2001

In her study of 'early music', Shelemay attempts to aim ethnographic study toward music of Medieval and Renaissance Europe.  She does so by discussing the Boston Early Music Festival, "a gathering where thousands of practitioners and aficionados of early music world swarm[ed] over the Boston landscape" (page 6).  She attempts to lay down boundaries about what early music is, and then delves into defining the early music movement.  As she compares and contrasts 'early music' to 'western music', she quotes Joel Cohen, saying that "Chinese music is early music, Arabic music is...".  She begins her postscript by saying, "I therefore offer two related proposals...", mentioning that musicologists should be trained in ethnographic experience with living traditions, and that these studies should include some "Western repertories", which aren't studied as much (at the time).  

Why is it the job of musicologists to study living tradition?  Shouldn't historians of early music be concerned with 'dead' tradition?