Music: Intro World Music Cultures

Survey of selected traditional, popular, and classical music cultures from around the globe (Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, Middle East, Latin America, etc.) through readings, recordings, demonstrations.

Open to degree and PACE students

Is music a “universal language”? This course seeks to move beyond clichés about music and challenge students’ thinking and attitudes through the study of selected non-Western music cultures. Using readings from the textbook and other sources, extensive listening, demonstrations, and classroom lectures and discussions, students explore how music communicates in culturally specific contexts, and discover new ways of hearing and understanding music. We survey Sub-Saharan African, Australian Aboriginal, Asian (Chinese, Japanese, Indonesian, South Asian, and others), American (Caribbean, South American, Native American), and Middle Eastern musical cultures. We explore the role of music in traditional societies, in colonial and post-colonial settings, in diasporic populations, and in global economies. Selected topics include: Musicology/Ethnomusicology, Semiotics, Organology (Study of Musical Instruments), Music and Identity, Musical Change, Music and Politics

Students are expected to keep up with assigned readings and familiarize themselves with the recordings that accompany the text and classroom lectures.

GRADES 50% quizzes 40% mid-term and final exams 10% Attendance and participation