Mantle Hood

Mantle Hood (June 24, 1918 – July 31, 2005) was an American ethnomusicologist. Among other areas, he specialized in studying gamelan music from Indonesia. Hood pioneered, in the 1950s and 1960s, a new approach to the study of music, and the creation of the first American university program devoted to ethnomusicology, at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

He was known for making the suggestion that his students learn to play the music they were studying. While it was somewhat novel at the time, this concept (dubbed by Hood bi-musicality) is a central tool of ethnomusicology today.

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