MofA Week 1: Difference between revisions
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* Course approaches - questions... | * Course approaches - questions... | ||
** Propositional/factual: under what conditions is X true? (inductive, scientific, objective) | ** Propositional/factual: under what conditions is X true? (inductive, scientific, objective) | ||
** Procedural/experiential: how to X? ( | ** Procedural/experiential: how to X? (subjective) | ||
** Critical/interpretive: why X? what | ** Critical/interpretive: why are we studying X? what are the tacit assumptions behind such study? what are the histories hidden behind "facts"? (questioning, intersubjective) | ||
** Transformative/applied: how can X change the world?... | ** Transformative/applied: how can X change the world?... (social action) | ||
* For example, X = " | * For example, X = "using microtones" | ||
** When and where are microtones used? See http://maqamworld.com | ** When and where are microtones used? See http://maqamworld.com | ||
** How to sing them? | ** How to sing them? | ||
** | ** Why do we call them "microtones" and why study them? | ||
** How can | ** How can they be used for positive social change - e.g. to induce cultural continuity, or evoke memory? | ||
* Who are the course members? Academic interests? Musical skills, living/working/travel experiences? What brings you here? (Please write up a paragraph also on eClass.) | * Who are the course members? Academic interests? Musical skills, living/working/travel experiences? What brings you here? (Please write up a paragraph also on eClass.) | ||
* Some important procedural things... | * Some important procedural things... | ||
| Line 15: | Line 15: | ||
** Please do come to class on time, prepared - having completed assignments as much as possible. | ** Please do come to class on time, prepared - having completed assignments as much as possible. | ||
** Please participate actively in discussions | ** Please participate actively in discussions | ||
** Please do not use electronic devices during the class except | ** Please do not use any electronic devices during the class except to support your participation in the class | ||
** There are two course websites | ** There are two course websites: | ||
*** the wiki is for the outline and lecture notes: http://bit.ly/maw18 ("music of the arab world 18") | *** the wiki is for the outline and lecture notes: http://bit.ly/maw18 ("music of the arab world 18") | ||
*** eClass is for assignments: http://bit.ly/maw18e Please submit all assignments via eClass | *** eClass is for assignments: http://bit.ly/maw18e Please submit all assignments via eClass | ||
| Line 23: | Line 23: | ||
= What is Music of the Arab world? How can we find out through Ethnomusicology? = | = What is Music of the Arab world? How can we find out through Ethnomusicology? = | ||
* What is Ethnomusicology? Ethnomusic-ology? Or Ethno-musicology? | * What is Ethnomusicology? (EM) Ethnomusic-ology? Or Ethno-musicology? Roots in Comparative Musicology, and a Critique. | ||
* Aims? (propositions, procedures, critiques, or transformations?) | * What are the Aims of EM today? (propositions, procedures, critiques, or social transformations?) | ||
* ETIC vs EMIC frames | * What are some of the Big Research Questions? | ||
* Ethnomusicology | * What are the Methods of EM? Ethnography & fieldwork, historiography & archival work, comparison, analysis, bimusicality... | ||
* Ethnomusicology also uses broad ETIC terms of analysis to describe multiple dimensions or aspects of music, in an attempt to come to grips with an entire world of music using a consistent terminology... One can thus divide all music into "aspects": textual, timbral, temporal, tonal, melodic, textural, formal, emotional/experiential, behavioral/social... Ideally the analytical framework should be objective (etic) [is it possible???]. | * ETIC vs EMIC frames: scientific vs local knowledge | ||
* Ethnomusicology tries to remain always sensitive to local knowledge - "ethno-musicology": centered on the EMIC. How do various societies understand and classify their own musics? | |||
* | * Ethnomusicology also uses broad ETIC terms of analysis to describe multiple dimensions or aspects of music, in an attempt to come to grips with an entire world of music using a consistent terminology... while also remaining sensitive to local knowledge and understanding. | ||
* One can thus divide all music into "aspects": textual, timbral, temporal, tonal, melodic, textural, formal, emotional/experiential, behavioral/social... | |||
* Let | * Ideally the analytical framework should be objective (etic) [is it possible???] but also amenable to local adaptation. | ||
* Question for investigation: ''Does | * Such frameworks may allow us to answer questions. | ||
* The first question for us: does Music of the Arab World (MAW) exist (as a coherent category)? If so, how? Sonically, socially (behaviorally), or culturally (conceptually)? | |||
* Let MAW = etic "Music of the Arab World" (but perhaps not equivalent to the emic Arabic: "al-musiqa al-`arabiyya"). | |||
* The "Arab world" is incredibly diverse, musically. | |||
* Question for investigation: ''Does MAW exist as a coherent category?'' Does it display consistent features for one or more aspects? Does it "cluster" apart from music of other "worlds"? | |||
* Method: empirical study and analysis - What does the sonic empirical evidence suggest? | * Method: empirical study and analysis - What does the sonic empirical evidence suggest? | ||
* First we should address a critical question: what is the Arab world? There are many possible definitions. But we'll focus on that more on Thursday. | |||
* | * Let's watch and listen and consider the following aspects: | ||
[[MA Textual]] (aspects of text, poetry, linguistic meaning) | [[MA Textual]] (aspects of text, poetry, linguistic meaning) | ||
| Line 57: | Line 59: | ||
[[MA Emotional]] (the feeling and experience of music, as inferred from behavior) | [[MA Emotional]] (the feeling and experience of music, as inferred from behavior) | ||
* Let's listen for a while...what do you hear? | |||
** [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPvyl6MYxlg Alaa Wardi's history of Arab music] | |||
** [https://drive.google.com/open?id=1f6curYUCjK574jSh2nmMtpHehlAJXXhY Sampler] | |||
** Other examples from iTunes | |||
| Line 68: | Line 74: | ||
in sum... | in sum... | ||
* | * What is music of the Arab world? | ||
<!-- [[Unity of Arab music]] (my list; don't look until you've thought about the issue yourself!) --> | <!-- [[Unity of Arab music]] (my list; don't look until you've thought about the issue yourself!) --> | ||
= Scholarly/Experiential/Critical Approach = | = Scholarly/Experiential/Critical Approach = | ||
Revision as of 13:01, 9 January 2018
Welcome to Area Studies in Ethnomusicology: The Arab World
- Course approaches - questions...
- Propositional/factual: under what conditions is X true? (inductive, scientific, objective)
- Procedural/experiential: how to X? (subjective)
- Critical/interpretive: why are we studying X? what are the tacit assumptions behind such study? what are the histories hidden behind "facts"? (questioning, intersubjective)
- Transformative/applied: how can X change the world?... (social action)
- For example, X = "using microtones"
- When and where are microtones used? See http://maqamworld.com
- How to sing them?
- Why do we call them "microtones" and why study them?
- How can they be used for positive social change - e.g. to induce cultural continuity, or evoke memory?
- Who are the course members? Academic interests? Musical skills, living/working/travel experiences? What brings you here? (Please write up a paragraph also on eClass.)
- Some important procedural things...
- We meet Tuesdays and Thursdays, 2 - 3:20 pm. (You may also like to attend MENAME on Thursday evenings, 6:30 - 9:30. See http://bit.ly/mename )
- Please do come to class on time, prepared - having completed assignments as much as possible.
- Please participate actively in discussions
- Please do not use any electronic devices during the class except to support your participation in the class
- There are two course websites:
- the wiki is for the outline and lecture notes: http://bit.ly/maw18 ("music of the arab world 18")
- eClass is for assignments: http://bit.ly/maw18e Please submit all assignments via eClass
- Most resources are electronic, but there are also physical books for sale in the bookstore and on Reserve. They are not required, but are useful in building a library.
What is Music of the Arab world? How can we find out through Ethnomusicology?
- What is Ethnomusicology? (EM) Ethnomusic-ology? Or Ethno-musicology? Roots in Comparative Musicology, and a Critique.
- What are the Aims of EM today? (propositions, procedures, critiques, or social transformations?)
- What are some of the Big Research Questions?
- What are the Methods of EM? Ethnography & fieldwork, historiography & archival work, comparison, analysis, bimusicality...
- ETIC vs EMIC frames: scientific vs local knowledge
- Ethnomusicology tries to remain always sensitive to local knowledge - "ethno-musicology": centered on the EMIC. How do various societies understand and classify their own musics?
- Ethnomusicology also uses broad ETIC terms of analysis to describe multiple dimensions or aspects of music, in an attempt to come to grips with an entire world of music using a consistent terminology... while also remaining sensitive to local knowledge and understanding.
- One can thus divide all music into "aspects": textual, timbral, temporal, tonal, melodic, textural, formal, emotional/experiential, behavioral/social...
- Ideally the analytical framework should be objective (etic) [is it possible???] but also amenable to local adaptation.
- Such frameworks may allow us to answer questions.
- The first question for us: does Music of the Arab World (MAW) exist (as a coherent category)? If so, how? Sonically, socially (behaviorally), or culturally (conceptually)?
- Let MAW = etic "Music of the Arab World" (but perhaps not equivalent to the emic Arabic: "al-musiqa al-`arabiyya").
- The "Arab world" is incredibly diverse, musically.
- Question for investigation: Does MAW exist as a coherent category? Does it display consistent features for one or more aspects? Does it "cluster" apart from music of other "worlds"?
- Method: empirical study and analysis - What does the sonic empirical evidence suggest?
- First we should address a critical question: what is the Arab world? There are many possible definitions. But we'll focus on that more on Thursday.
- Let's watch and listen and consider the following aspects:
MA Textual (aspects of text, poetry, linguistic meaning)
MA Timbral (aspects of sound color, instrumentation)
MA Temporal (aspects of rhythm, meter, tempo...)
MA Tonal (aspects of intonation, scale, tonality)
MA Melodic (aspects of modality, melodic patterning, improvisation)
MA Textural (aspects of layering and relationships of multiple parts)
MA Formal (aspects of large-scale structure)
MA Behavioral (the social aspects of the performance - including audience and performer actions and interactions)
MA Emotional (the feeling and experience of music, as inferred from behavior)
- Let's listen for a while...what do you hear?
- Alaa Wardi's history of Arab music
- Sampler
- Other examples from iTunes
Thought questions:
- To what degree do these features gather musics of the Arab world?
- To what degree do these features exclude musics of other worlds?
Is "music of the Arab world" an objectively coherent category? What about "Arab music" - can a satisfactory definition be established, independent of discursive use?
in sum...
- What is music of the Arab world?
Scholarly/Experiential/Critical Approach
- Area Studies in Ethnomusicology: The Arab World = Ethnomusicology of the Arab world?
- What is "ethnomusicology"?
- What is "ethnomusicology of the Arab world"? = "contextual study of music of the Arab world"?
- What is "music of the Arab world"?
- What is "the Arab world"?
- What is "Arab"?
- What can ethnomusicology contribute (and for what?)
- Course approach
- Understanding: discursively, experientially
- discursive, linguistic, descriptive, propositional, declarative knowledge (cognizing)
- Non-discursive, pre-linguistic, experiential, bodily, musical knowledge (feeling)
- Doing: procedural (implicit) knowledge
- Performing (improvising)
- Creating, composing (editing)
- Critiquing
- Community Service Learning (CSL): "doing" - students in action, relevant academia, collaborative applied or PAR research, progressive volunteer pedagogy/research towards the broader social good through giving and learning, community commitment and advocacy, engaged knowledge, global citizenship. Entails "commitments to learning, discovery, and citizenship, and to connecting communities..." (View Dean Cormack's speech)
- Understanding: discursively, experientially
- Ethnomusicology
- studying music in culture, society, history
- semantic networks of symbols: representations, concepts, beliefs (culture, religion, language)
- social networks of people: relationships, communications, exchanges (society, economy, polity)
- temporal networks of flow (history)
- Meta-musicology as musicology...in 3 senses:
- "beyond" the usual domain of music (western art music) to include all music
- beyond the usual definition of music ("art of tones") to include social/semantic/historical context
- "beyond" the usual methods (written word and score to fieldwork)
- "beyond" the usual disciplinary frame (historical, analytical, theoretical) towards culture, society, history (interdisciplinarity)
- Theoretical, conceptual
- Empirical, grounded
- studying music in culture, society, history
- World music, worlds of music
- Area studies
- in general
- in ethnomusicology
- and "Arab"
- Problematizing, critiquing
- "only that which has no history can be defined" (Friedrich Nietzsche (d. 1900), Genealogy of Morals)
- etic and emic
- source and reference
- problematization: turning a concept into a problem (from the implicit to the descriptive/definitional to the undefinable!)
- writing a critique: summary/scope + boundaries/limits/relationships
- CSL component: El Mastaba
- Careful review of Course outline
- Resources
- Requirements
Problematizing concepts: "Music of the Arab world"
What is music of the Arab world? What is the Arab world? Problematizing concepts
Unity in Music of the Arab world?
Listen, watch, and develop some theories...
Category of "Music of the Arab World" (or "Arab music") - is it coherent? Note that this question can be answered by recourse to discourse (do people use such a category? (Is it "emic"?) If so, what does it mean for them?) or by recourse to sound (can we list a set of attributes which define such a category?)
Let's take the latter approach, considering objective audio-visual data presented in class. What features recur? Try to fill in the following list by editing the following pages, before reviewing my own list below. (Emotional and behavioral features require that you watch the music - via video.)
- More audio examples are available on University of Alberta Library database: (a) Smithsonian Global Sound; (b) Contemporary World Music
- Audio examples with metadata. PLEASE LISTEN TO THESE OFTEN!! Review as many as possible in your SC papers in relation to other readings, categorizing by style. Note that these mp3 files contain metadata (download the files and inspect using iTunes or another program).
Problematizing concepts: "Music of the Arab world"
What is music of the Arab world? What is the Arab world? Problematizing concepts
Unity in Music of the Arab world?
Listen, watch, and develop some theories...
Category of "Music of the Arab World" (or "Arab music") - is it coherent? Note that this question can be answered by recourse to discourse (do people use such a category? (Is it "emic"?) If so, what does it mean for them?) or by recourse to sound (can we list a set of attributes which define such a category?)
Let's take the latter approach, considering objective audio-visual data presented in class. What features recur? Try to fill in the following list by editing the following pages, before reviewing my own list below. (Emotional and behavioral features require that you watch the music - via video.)
- More audio examples are available on University of Alberta Library database: (a) Smithsonian Global Sound; (b) Contemporary World Music
- Audio examples with metadata. PLEASE LISTEN TO THESE OFTEN!! Review as many as possible in your SC papers in relation to other readings, categorizing by style. Note that these mp3 files contain metadata (download the files and inspect using iTunes or another program).
Ethnomusicology of the Arab world: analysis
- Ethnomusicology uses broad ETIC terms of analysis to describe multiple dimensions or aspects of music, in an attempt to come to grips with an entire world of music using a consistent terminology... One can thus divide all music into "aspects": textual, timbral, temporal, tonal, melodic, textural, formal, emotional/experiential, behavioral/social... Ideally the analytical framework should be objective (etic) [is it possible???].
- Let MA = "Arab music" as shorthand for "Music of the Arab World" ( but perhaps not equivalent to Arabic: "al-musiqa al-`arabiyya")
- Question for investigation: Does MA exist as a coherent category? Does it display any consistent features for one or more aspects?
- Method: empirical study and analysis - What does the sonic empirical evidence suggest?
- Based on your listening (using the foregoing links, or other materials at your disposal), to what extent can you characterize Arab music according to the following musical-social aspects? Please edit each wiki page adding your signed comments for next Tuesday...
Analyze "Music of the Arab World" through systematic consideration of its various Aspects:
MA Textual (aspects of text, poetry, linguistic meaning)
MA Timbral (aspects of sound color, instrumentation)
MA Temporal (aspects of rhythm, meter, tempo...)
MA Tonal (aspects of intonation, scale, tonality)
MA Melodic (aspects of modality, melodic patterning, improvisation)
MA Textural (aspects of layering and relationships of multiple parts)
MA Formal (aspects of large-scale structure)
MA Emotional (the feeling and experience of music, as inferred from behavior)
MA Behavioral (the social aspects of the performance - including audience and performer actions and interactions)
Thought questions:
- To what degree do these features gather musics of the Arab world?
- To what degree do these features exclude musics of other worlds?
Is "music of the Arab world" an objectively coherent category? What about "Arab music" - can a satisfactory definition be established, independent of discursive use?
in sum...
- What is music of the Arab world? (please record your thoughts and queries here)