High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Robert Garfias (born 1932) is a figure in ethnomusicology and musicology. He is a professor of Anthropology and a member of The Social Dynamics and Complexity Group at the University of California, Irvine as well as a professor at the Japanese National Museum of Ethnology in Senri, Osaka. He completed his doctorate at University of California, Los Angeles and taught at the University of Washington where he established the graduate program in ethnomusicology before coming to University of California, Irvine. He has conducted research on the analysis of complex music systems, including the Turkish Ottoman Classical system, Japanese court music and many other musical traditions in which he is fluent as a musical performer, linguist, and archivist. He has also written on The Role of Dreams and Spirit Possession in the Mbira Dza Vadzimu Music of the Shona People of Zimbabwe. Complexity in the domain of expressive culture, music, and the social organization of complex musical traditions is one of his major specialties.