Music for Global Human Development - Winter 2019 plan

This page contains the course plan. Turn here to find assignments, notes and links, in case you need to revisit them (or if you missed class). eClass will contain links to submit assignments only. Please submit assignments only via eClass.

Short link to this page: http://bit.ly/m4ghd19p
Short link back to the syllabus: http://bit.ly/m4ghd19s
Short link to eClass: http://bit.ly/m4ghd19e

Week 1: Introduction

An introduction to the course: "Area Studies in Ethnomusicology: Africa (Music for Global Human Development in Africa)"

Tues, 8 Jan 2019

• Welcome to the class! Note: There are absolutely no prerequisites for this course.
• Introductions. What do you want to get out of this course? Please respond on eClass also.
• In this class we'll study African music (traditional and popular, live and mediated) as a potential social technology for positive change...
  • As an indigenous technology: how does music work its social impact, ethnically (traditional) or generationally (popular)
  • As an intervention: what can it do, and how?
• Concepts:
  • "Music": narrow and broad definitions, expressive culture.
  • Ethnomusicology (the three "extensions": sonic, contextual, disciplinary), Applied Ethnomusicology (operating outside academia), M4GHD
  • "Music as a social technology"
  • Africa
    • History of the concept, exonym vs endonym, geographical or cultural, natural or artificial?
    • Diversity (climate, religion, culture, language, history, politics)
    • African languages
    • Africa through maps
  • African music vs. Music in Africa
    • Traditional (and folklorized), including "traditional religious"
    • Popular (what are the fundamental differences?)
    • "Classical", church. Centrality of vocal music.
    • World music, world beat
    • Diversity and generalizations (temporal, tonal, instrumental, social)
  • African music - Stereotypes to be shattered:
    • "It's primitive" (complexity, ethnocentrism)
    • "It's Rhythmic" (not all, poetry central)
    • "It's all drumming" (melodic instruments)
    • "It's ahistoric like Africa" (developments, histories)
    • "Everyone can drum" (big differences in talent)
    • "It's all erotic" (well, it's all relative!)
    • "It's all the same" (huge variety!)
    • "It's at the root of blues and jazz" (yes to some extent, but flows also went the other way...)
    • "It's all traditional" (lots of interchanges within Africa and beyond, e.g. xylophones)
    • "It's all local due to isolation" (not at all!)
    • "It's all oral" (art music traditions)

• • Development
    • History of "Development". From "industrialization" to "economy" to Human Development Index (including health and education) -- see list -- to broader measures of wellbeing (World Happiness Report; list)
    • Human Development and Human Development in Africa (see Current HDI listing and this graph (activate the animation and watch China vs African countries)
    • Driving through Data: https://www.gapminder.org/ is a wonderful resource, summarizing many sources. Browse our page of sources (to be expanded).
    • Participatory approaches and PAR
  • Music for Global Human Development in Africa, and overview of some prior projects. A ppt presentation.
  • Northern Ghana: Hausa and Dagomba. Most in need of development. Organizations: University for Development Studies, Youth Home Cultural Group, many MANY NGOs... Northern Ghana will be our project focus. See Map (from prior summer program)

A few more key course concepts:

• Ethnocentrism (Chronocentrism, Lingocentrism...)
• Etic and Emic, vs. Outsider and Insider
• Quantitative and Qualitative research. The importance of data and its limits.
• Scientific, Humanistic, and Critical research
• Source and Reference. Example: Richard Wallaschek's book on Primitive Music tells us about music of the world, but tells us even more about the author's world of the late 19th century. Claim: everything in the world is a SOURCE.
• Critical thinking, reading, writing. We turn SOURCE into REFERENCE through the process of CRITIQUE.
• Reading review: bipartite (summary/critique)

Course mechanics: Syllabus: Resources, Requirements, Websites, and Mechanics. It is not necessary to purchase any books for this course.

Assignment (complete before class)

• Watch: Basil Davidson film, part 1 (1 hour)
• Read: African History: A Short Introduction, chapter 1 (pp. 19-34; 15 pages)
• Read: African Music : A People's Art by Francis Bebey, through page 16.
• Listen: select two musical tracks from Africa (1) a traditional song, using Global Jukebox or ; (2) a popular song from Awesome tapes from Africa
• Write (2 critical paragraphs, just a couple of sentences for each question - but do think critically!). Submit on eClass:
  • What is Africa?
  • What is African music?
  • How does African music function as a "social technology", or how can it be modified to do so? (use your two selected tracks as examples)
• For fun: test your skills at identifying Africa's 55 countries (and capitals!). Interactive map quiz for African countries; another quiz for capitals.

Week 2

Tues, 15 Jan

• Watch: The Drums of Dagbon
• Watch: Fonko: An African Musical Revolution
• Read: Chernoff (to be assigned)
• Read: Representing African Music Introduction (pp. xi - xxii; 11 pages)