[1] Fredric Lieberman was a pioneer in North-American ethnomusicology, by opening the field to East Asian music practice and its relations to theory and civilization.
His major contribution, his PhD thesis, was the transcription/translation of an important music book, a manual with real musical pieces to be learned and played, from an identified tradition: the Mei'an Qinpu 梅庵琴譜 by master Wang Binlu 王賓魯 from Zhucheng 諸城, written by Xu Lisun 徐立孫 and Shao Sen 邵森, from Nantong 南通, first published 1931.
Still active in the professional milieu till the end of his life, he took the responsibility of the Klaus P. Wachsmann Prize for the best essay in organology annually awarded by the Society for Ethnomusicology.
He was perhaps best known for his role as the key contact between the University of California at Santa Cruz and The Grateful Dead, in finding a home for the band's archives at the university's McHenry Library[1][3] and for his collaboration with Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart on three of Hart's books: Planet Drum, Drumming at the Edge of Magic, and Spirit Into Sound.
Sonneborn, examines rhythm's role in cultural traditions and considers the primal percussion experience of the "Big Bang.".