Lecture notes Sep 6: Introduction to World Music (Fall 2017)

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

Prelude: name that tune!

• An African rhythm heard, and seen. (Were you surprised?)
• Global Jukebox: Rosie (under Learning/Lesson plans). Just listen first. Then read. Note song, explanation, cantometrics coding, metadata. Watch short video. What do you think of Lomax's comments?
• Comments on these tracks? Musical observations? Contextual/functional observations?
• What do these two tracks have in common - musically, contextually?? How is musical meaning shaped by culture, beyond sound?

Musical stretch: Rosie

Call (C), Response (R)

C: Be my woman gal I'll
R: Be your man
(repeat several times)

C: Whoa Rosie
R: Hold on gal
(repeat several times)

Try singing Rosie together.

Introductions

• Michael Frishkopf, instructor
• TA?
• all of you!

Goals

• learn about world music through film - mainly documentary ethnographic...
• learn about the many dimensions of our diverse musical world
• learn to understand our world musically
• understand music as both product and shaper of its environment, especially the power of music to effect change: music as a technology
• broaden musical horizons, develop musical capacities
• learn how to think critically about (music) culture
• get introduced to the discipline of ethnomusicology

Course strategies: emphasis on...

• Visual world music/ethnomusicology: learning music/music culture/critical thinking through films
• Collaborative work
• Participation in class
• Mixing ethnographic, critical, and creative approaches

Course Mechanics and Requirements

• Course mechanics
  • We will start promptly at 6:30 - please be there.
  • course syllabus: http://bit.ly/iwm17 . use the course syllabus to learn about assignments and (via weekly links at the top of each section) review lecture notes
  • course calendar: http://bit.ly/iwm17cc
  • course eclass page: http://bit.ly/iwm17ec . use eClass to submit assignments, always on the day they are due
  • please make name cards, and say your name when you speak in class
  • textbooks: none! All materials are available free of charge, most of them online, and the rest on Rutherford reserve
  • groups: this course adopts an active-learning collaborative approach. I have divided you at random into 11 subgroups of 4-5; each group is assigned a Google Drive folder (you sholud have received an invite) where you can share and edit materials with each other - and with me. You have access to others' group materials as read-only. Please communicate as you wish - via email, social media, or face to face. You will have short collaborative assignments each week.
  • for more help: sign up for my office hours at http://frishkopf.org or email me
• Course requirements:
  • Participation is essential! Please arrive on time, stay until the end, and do not miss any classes!! Your group will be presenting nearly every week. And the course centers on visual ethnomusicology: nearly every evening will center on a film we will watch together.
  • Short weekly reading/viewing/listening/browsing: I will not assign more than 20 pages per week! Please don't wait until the last minute to do the assignments. (They're interesting!)
  • Very short weekly responses (description + critique) to those weekly assignments, amounting to one short paragraph (3-5 sentences) per week MAX!
  • One world music concert review (an event description + critique), 2 pages - due by end of term.
  • Midterm quiz and final quiz: these will center on short (one sentence) IDs of terms, musical examples, map locations.
  • Optional creative assignment for extra credit (everyone is encouraged to submit this assignment and share with the class; musical "talent" not required!), due by end of term.

Structure of a typical three hour session (from next week on...)

• Prelude: name that tune!
• Musical stretching
• Group presentations: 3-5 minutes each, on previous week's film. Group should come to the front of the classroom to present. Everyone should be there, and everyone should participate. Presentations can be verbal, musical, or visual - feel free to use media (embed in Google Slides in your Google folder)
• B R E A K (5 minutes)
• Introduction to the film and its musical world (occasionally we'll have a guest instead of a film)
• Film (or guest)
• Discussion
• Assigning group topics and assignments

Some Key Definitions and Topics/Issues

• Music, World Music, Ethnomusicology
  • Music
    • Western Art Music
    • Folk Music
    • Jazz
    • Popular Music (lots of varieties here)
    • Broaden definition of "music": musical discourses, practices (dancing, or talking about a favorite artist - or practicing and rehearsing...or researching!)
  • World Music
    • A strange "genre"...
    • Isn't all music "world music"? It would appear so...
    • So maybe "world music" is "collections of music" that span the world...
    • ...or individual musical instances that imply such a collection by implicit comparison to local (western) music
    • Came to prominence in 1980s to sell African popular musics
  • Ethnomusicology (EM)
    • Ethnomusicology is the study of world music: people making music – in & all around the world. Ethnomusicologists ask big questions of music: what, who, where, and why in the world ? They attend especially to the local perspective on music's sound, structure, and meaning. Study ethnomusicology to broaden your musical horizons, and better understand the world around you.
    • EM: implies extensions to the usual boundaries of music study:
      • extended cultural range of music and related arts (e.g. dance)
      • extended context: spatial-temporal frames
      • extended disciplinary perspectives and methods (especially anthropology)
    • Comparative Musicology -> Ethnomusicology
• Culture, society, identity.
  • Ethnos ("nation", culture and society) = ethos (emotional) + eidos (cognitive) dimensions.
  • Culture as a web of meaning
  • Society as a web of people
  • Cultures and Societies are imagined as plurals: discrete, distinct webs...constituting separate "spheres" of meaning or social relations. But....is that realistic?
  • Identity as a set of overlapping circles: gender, religion, ethnicity, nationality....
• Cross-cultural topics cutting across all regions: religion ; ritual (seasonal; life cycle: birth - marriage - death); gender; politics; aesthetics; depression; protest; war; violence; globalization; migration; travel; migration, human rights; poverty...Thought question: are these topics really the same across regions, "universals"?
• Geocultural regions (defined by cultural, social, and geographical areas) are cross-cut by multiple topics.... Thought question: is anything really bounded?
• "Ethno" prefix implies "insider cultural approach" (e.g. ethnobotany: the way different peoples classify plants)
  • Thus: Ethnomusicology = Ethno-musicology (studying musicology from a local perspective, mainly via in-depth fieldwork) + ethnomusic-ology (studying local varieties of music from a global perspective, e.g. comparative musicology)
  • Originally, ethnomusicology was defined by objects of study summarized as: primitive (or tribal), Oriental civilizations, and folk
  • Until recently usually summarized (a) non-Western musics; (b) folk musics.
  • Today, ethnomusicology studies any music - the difference is in how it is studied: in broadened frames, from broadened perspectives.

• Relation of music M and culture/society/identity E: Three basic relations:
  • Music shaping Ethnos: M > E
  • Ethnos shaping Music: E > M
  • Correlation: M ~ E
• Problem: ethnocentrism! (implicitly presuming one's own culture as a standard, e.g. for musical judgment: "That scale is out of tune!!." ([1])

Widening our musical horizons...

• Ethnomusicological ethnocentrism, in structure (and perception), and in aesthetics (and valuation): e.g. 12/8
• what kinds of frames can we use to neutrally consider all musics of the world? " open listening” (considering music without prejudice) e.g. western instrument classification vs. H-S. E.g. harmony/melody/rhythm vs. ….
• music analysis (MF categories, cantometrics)
• creative vs critical (source vs. reference). How to watch a film critically - absorb but also reflect. Always ask: Whose point of view is this?
• the nature of “critique” and critical thinking…assignments.

Today's topic: Alan Lomax and Cantometrics

• Alan Lomax (1915 – 2002): one of the greatest folk music collectors of all time, especially in North America.
• But he also theorized about M~E  : how are musical sounds and cultural practices correlated around the world?
• Cantometrics: coding song, towards correlating musical and cultural features (using culture codings from Murdock's Atlas of World Cultures)
• Cantometrics tries to provide a neutral frame for evaluation, but is it ethnocentric?
• Cantometrics training tapes: Structure
• So Cantometrics is also a way of hearing...
• Global jukebox review

• Documentary: Lomax the Songhunter 1:30

Assignments.