Music for Global Human Development - Winter 2019 plan

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. A ppt presentation and overview of some recent projects, such as Singing and Dancing for Health
  • Northern Ghana: Hausa and Dagomba. Most in need of development. Organizations: University for Development Studies, Youth Home Cultural Group (see overview and interview with Assau Mohammed), 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 plan:

• Begin with the big picture: Africa, African music, ethnomusicology, M4GHD
• Then we turn to a series of case studies focused on music and development, indigenous and interventional, around Africa
• Meanwhile we are learning about northern Ghana and you are developing a M4GHD project proposal to be implemented there
• In March Assau Mohammed will join us for consultations and training in traditional Dagomba music and dance
• Final week: present your projects, due as final papers the week after
• Note: this is a seminar, meaning your presence and active participation is crucial!

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

Note:

• Jan 25 and 28: Afrobrazilian artist Danda da Hora - lecture demo (25th at 3:30) and workshop (28th at 12:30) - not to be missed! Details forthcoming.
• Signup for the CCE-people mailing list to stay in the loop; see http://cce.ualberta.ca

Assignment (complete before class)

• Watch: Basil Davidson film, Africa 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.
• Practice the "standard pattern" we tried in class:
  • long long short long long long short (one hand)
  • four beats (the other hand)
  • If that's confusing try this:

x	'	x	'	x	x	'	x	'	x	'	x
c			c			c			c

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)