Area Studies in Ethnomusicology: Africa (2019)

Area Studies in Ethnomusicology: Africa
(Music for Global Human Development in Africa)
Music 472 (undergraduate) and 582 (graduate)

Instructor: M. Frishkopf

Winter Term, 2019

Time: TR - 3:30 PM - 4:50 PM

short link: http://bit.ly/m4ghd19s

This seminar course centers on understanding music and other performance arts in Africa as a sustainable, scaleable, highly effective technology for maintaining vibrant, healthy societies, ensuring social cohesion, civil society, social justice, equality, multicultural and multigenerational connectivity,gender justice, ecological balance, community health, cultural continuity, and basic education.

We will study musical types across the continent, both traditional and contemporary, local forms and newly-formulated interventions, from the perspective of their efficacy for social progress along these lines. We will also study interventions introduced by NGOs and ethnomusicologists as means of promoting social and cultural goals. In particular, we will study Music for Global Human Development (http://m4ghd.org) -- applying music as a collaborative social technology towards social justice across a spectrum of issues, from health and education, to peace, civil society, and social integration.

We will focus on application of these ideas and methods in a wide range of regions and countries through critical review of current literature, local practices, and musical interventions both past and present. We will also design m4ghd projects for the future. We will study the means by which such projects are designed, implemented, and assessed, following a Participatory Action Research framework.

Some examples of such projects that I have worked on include:

• Giving Voice to Hope: Music of Liberian Refugees
• Sanitation, a music video for public health in Liberia
• Kinka, for cultural continuity among the Ewe of Ghana
• Singing and Dancing for Health in northern Ghana
• Aswan Music Project, for civil society and cultural development in southern Egypt
• "If you have heart", a song for maternal and child health in Ethiopia (soon to be released)

Many ethnomusicologists who study African music have developed similar applied projects, sometimes as a primary focus, and sometimes as a side-project designed to serve the communities in which they have studied and lived. We will examine these works, whether framed as academic products or not.

The course will run as a tightly-knit seminar in which assigned readings, films, and recordings are discussed and analyzed. You will review these materials in short writing assignments. A final paper will center on a proposed project of your own, drawing on case studies we've encountered during the term. There will be no final exam.

In addition there will be an opportunity to interact with special guest artists from Ghana and Sudan, whom we plan to host in March.

NB: There are absolutely no prerequisites for the course. Neither musical skills nor prior coursework in Music is required. There is no final exam. The course is offered for both undergraduate and graduate credit.