Marcia Alice Herndon (October 1, 1941 – May 19, 1997) was an American ethnomusicologist and anthropologist. She specialized in the ways culture and music reflect each other. Herndon grew up in a family of country music performers in North Carolina. After completing her master's degree in 1964 at Tulane University, she performed classical music for several years. Earning a PhD in anthropology and ethnomusicology in 1971, she taught at the University of Texas at Austin, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Maryland. She is widely known for her contributions to Native American music studies with books such as Native American Music, as well as collaborating on Music as Culture, and Music, Gender, and Culture, which analyze the overlapping of musical forms and cultural