Music for Global Human Development - Winter 2019 plan

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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 study of music in the broadest possible sense
    • Ethnomusicology's breadth: the three "extensions": sonic, contextual, disciplinary.
    • Applied Ethnomusicology (operating outside academia)
    • M4GHD: "Music as a social technology"
    • Africa and African Studies
      • 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
    • 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

Thur, 10 Jan 2019

Assignment (complete before class)

  • Watch: Basil Davidson film, Africa part 1 (1 hour). We'll watch other parts of this wonderful (if somewhat old) BBC series by one of Africa's foremost journalists and interpreters. (Sorry for the poor picture quality, but it's really worth watching the whole series and the best possible introduction to African studies.)
  • 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.
  • Also for fun: Practice the "standard pattern" we tried in class, striking right and left hand on table top (or drum...):
    • long long short long long long short (right hand)
    • four beats (left hand)
    • Then try dropping out hand strokes to create variations.
    • If that's confusing try this, one instance of the so-called "standard pattern" found throughout Africa and its diaspora (see video), in 12 pulses (this version is typical of Ewe music in southeastern Ghana):
R . R . R R . R . R . R
L . . L . . L . . L . .

Class

  • Reintroductions
  • Test your knowledge of African countries.
  • Thought questions:
    • What is Africa?
    • What is African music?
    • Who created either?
    • Why is African music frequently said to focus on "rhythm" and "drumming"? What are the associated stereotypes?
    • How does African music function as a "social technology", why is it particularly suitable? or how can it be modified to do so? What are its key features?
    • Use your songs as examples.
  • Your songs.
  • African popular music: Giving Voice to Hope. What did you think of it? Range of styles. Advantages and disadvantages for M4GHD?
  • More on M4GHD (ppt)
  • Traditional African music vs. popular African music
    • Warp vs. weft
    • How can we define "traditional"? (etic term) Consider: factors of cultural continuity, ethnicity, mediation, commodification, scale-free properties
    • The Standard Pattern (etic) - recurring in many African and African diasporic cultures. Your rhythm. Powerpoint on Ghanaian music: 4/4 and 12/8. See notation above.
    • The highlife pattern (etic) - also common in Africa and the diaspora, in 16 pulses, as 3+3+4+2+4 (a traditional variant is 3+3+4+4+2)
R . . R . . R . . . R . R . . .
L . . . L . . . L . . . L . . .

Week 2

Tues, 15 Jan

Assignment

  • Watch: The Drums of Dagbon (traditional music of Ghana's north). Note: you can view a transcript as the video plays (click on the Transcript tab). The film was written by drummer Alhaji Ibrahim Abdulai and ethnomusicologist John Miller Chernoff.
  • Watch: Fonko: An African Musical Revolution (popular music)
  • Read: Chernoff chapters 1 & 2 (music of Ghana - one of the most famous ethnographic studies ever written by a celebrated ethnomusicologist, John Chernoff) (33 pages; you can read a bit selectively - just skip the notations if you're not comfortable with reading them).
  • Read: Representing African Music Introduction (pp. xi - xxii; 11 pages). One of the world's foremost music theorists, and professor at Princeton University, reflects on the ways African music has been (mis)represented. Key critical viewpoint from an insider/outsider.
  • Write: drawing on the above examples, how is African music represented by ethnomusicologists, both in scholarly writing and in film? What is the role of the scholar? Where are the strengths of these representations? Potential pitfalls? Just one paragraph please.

Class

Review

Discussion #1: Representation

  • What are the main points Kofi Agawu presents in his introduction? What do you think?
  • How are Africa and African music represented in scholarly or popular discourses you've encountered thus far? What are the implications? What is the ethical role of the scholar in representation? What is the role of race? How do these issues bear upon M4GHD?
  • Take your songs as examples (from last Thursday as examples - please be sure you've supplied links; bring your ideas to the discussion.)
  • Take the two films as further examples. Who produced them and how?

Discussion #2: Traditional and Popular music

  • What did you think of the two films, Drums of Dagbon, and Fonko? What did they tell you about Africa, Africans, African music?
  • What are some of the differences between traditional and popular music in Africa?
  • How do both traditional and popular musics already function as M4GHD?
  • How can they be repurposed in M4GHD interventions? What are the tradeoffs - differences in usage and impact?

Discussion #3: brainstorming ideas for your projects in Northern Ghana.

Thurs, 17 Jan

Assignment

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