Ethnomusicology

3 units

This course provides an introduction to the field of ethnomusicology, defined broadly as the study of music in-or as-culture or the study of people making music. We will explore the varied ethnographic, anthropological, historical, and music-analytical approaches that ethnomusicologists have employed to explain the vital role of music-making in diverse human societies. We will seek to understand the social significance of a variety of musical practices, drawing on ethnomusicological scholarship to address music's performance, circulation, and reception. Case studies from around the world will demonstrate the multiple ways that sound shapes-and is shaped by-issues of cultural practice and representation, ideologies of authenticity, intersectional identities, cultural memory, ideas and structures of tradition, colonialism and post-colonialism, transnationalism and globalization. Our case studies will introduce students to a number of important musical genres and traditions, including (in the order in which they appear in the class): Mbira (Zimbabwe), Andean Kena music (Peru), Jazz (U.S.), Samba (Brazil), Gamelan (Java), Funk (U.S.), Egyptian musics, Ottoman-Turkish classical music, Karnatic Music (South India), Gisaeng music (Korea), Ngoma (South Africa), Agbekor (Ghana), Hip Hop (U.S.), and Noise (Japan).