Schedule and Assignments: Introduction to World Music (Fall 2017)

Sep 6: Hearing music of the world: World Folksong, Alan Lomax, and Cantometrics

Lecture notes Sep 6

In class

• Prelude: Listening and understanding... Nay sounds (quarter tones), Sufi hadra, post office music, Rosie
• Some musical warmups: Rosie
• Course syllabus and course mechanics
• Definitions: "Music", "World Music", "Folk Music"
• Lomax and Cantometrics. Documentary: Lomax the Songhunter

For the coming week (due Sep 13)

• Read 15 pages:
  • Saga of a Folksong Hunter, Hi Fi Stereo Review, May 1960, pp. 38-46 [about 6 pages not counting the many photos!] (& optionally browse the entire issue and savor this long-gone era of musical listening!)
  • Cultural Equity: On the Documentary Lomax the Songhunter, by Tom Sutpen, November 1, 2006 [webpage, approximately 5 pages]
  • Cantometrics, by Jeff Todd Titon, The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 95, No. 377 (Jul. - Sep., 1982), pp. 370-374 [4 pages]
• Browse websites:
  • The Association for Cultural Equity
  • The Global Jukebox, using either Map or Tree modes. Examine some Cantometrics codings.
• Write (1 short paragraph, 3-5 sentences): What do you think of Cantometrics and Lomax's enterprise as a whole? What worked, in your view? What didn't? Write a short paragraph (3-5 sentences maximum!) and submit via eClass for September 13.
• Group work:
  • Develop your own group version of Global Jukebox: Rosie (under Learning/Lesson plans). OR Develop a collective table-top drum piece (with singing), along these lines. Perform in class (just 1 minute or so!).
  • Odd numbered groups (1,3,5,7,9,11): critique Cantometrics, but come up with a different way of comparing musics of the world; optionally, outline your ideas via Google Drive/Google Slides (or you can simply plan to talk through your points)
  • Even numbered (2,4,6,8,10): defend Cantometrics, and introduce refinements to make it even better; optionally, outline your ideas via Google Drive/Google Slides (or you can simply plan to talk through your points)

Sep 13: When is music not "music"? The sound and meaning of Qur'anic recitation

Lecture notes Sep 13: Introduction to World Music (Fall 2017)

In class

Prelude

• Rosie via David Guetta ft. Nicki Minaj ("Hey mama")
  • What do you hear? World musical influences?
  • How has the meaning changed?
  • What are the implications for world music?
  • See this article by Jeff Miers.
• name that tune! Hearing and Understanding via Cantometrics...where in the world?
  • Social organization of the performing group
  • Nasality

Musical stretching: singing microtones in the Arab maqamat (scales)

• Exploring the maqamat: focus on Bayyati, Hijaz, Rast
• tuning up
• Arabic scale Rast (3rd and 7th degrees are half flat)

Group work:

• Performances
• Opinions about Cantometrics and Alan Lomax

Discussion:

• Etic vs. emic
• source vs. reference
• Review: music, world music, ethnomusicology

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5 minute break

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Qur'anic recitation

Etic: ritual music
Emic: not musiqa (موسيقى)

Film: Qur'an by Heart

Discussion

For coming week (due Sep 20)

Viewing:

• Watch and hear Kuwaiti reciter Mishary Rashed Alafasy reciting Surat al-Fatiha (the first Chapter of the Qur'an) in maqam Nahawand. Follow along on the transliteration, and read the translation at the end.
• Repeat several times until you start to grasp the aesthetics of recitation.

Read:

• The Qur'an Recited, by Kristina Nelson (from Garland Encyclopedia of World Music v. 6 - Middle East. If you have trouble with the above link click here and navigate to the article under section Part 2 Understanding the Musics of the Middle East: Issues and Processes). This is a sympathetic outsider's account of Qur'anic recitation, treated in broad context. (5 pages)
• The Overnight Qari - Read from the beginning to the end of Section 2, plus Section 4 (equivalent to 15 pages of text; there are many images and half-full pages); skim the rest as you like. This is an insider's account of Qur'anic recitation by a Canadian, focused on teaching you to recite.
  • Click on media links and watch as you wish, but especially please watch: Surah al-Fatiha in Seven Maqamat. Listen to the first four maqamat: Bayyati, Hijaz, Rast, Nahawand (and the others if you like: Sikah, Saba, Ajam).
  • Practice reciting along with the recording in each maqam.

Group activities:

• Issues to discuss in class: discuss the film from one of the following perspectives
  • Countering Islamophobia through understanding
  • Children's performance
  • oral vs. written traditions
  • competition in ritual and art

Sep 20

Lecture notes Sep 20: Introduction to World Music (Fall 2017)

Telling stories through music: the epic.

Sep 27: Special guest, George Chungo Otiende

http://www.chungaotiende.com/

Oct 4

Lecture notes Oct 4: Introduction to World Music (Fall 2017)