Music for Global Human Development - Winter 2020 schedule: Difference between revisions

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= Week 11:  17-Mar & 19-Mar =
= Week 11:  17-Mar & 19-Mar =


== Tuesday: Project presentations ==  
== Tuesday: Project and preliminary report presentations ==  


''Note: as per University of Alberta policy we will no longer be meeting face to face in the classroom. All meetings will be virtual.  On Tuesday we will experiment with two modalities: eClass Live (link is on eClass), and Google Meet (you'll have received a Google Calendar invite).  Please be online by 2 pm and we'll try both and use whatever channel seems more effective and robust.''
''Note: as per University of Alberta policy we will no longer be meeting face to face in the classroom. All meetings will be virtual.  Today we will experiment with two modalities: Google Meet ([https://meet.google.com/euk-ukpq-veb link is here] and on eClass as well as on your Google Calendars), and eClass Live (link is on eClass).  Please be online by 2 pm. We'll try Google Meet first; if it's not working well we'll try eClass Live.''


Be prepared to present and discuss your project (aim/significance/background/methods/progress to date); your colleagues will provide feedback.  Your extended project proposal/report draft is due next Tuesday (Week 12).  I will provide feedback by the following weekend, in time for your Google Slides presentations, which will happen in Weeks 13 and 14.  These will then form the basis for your final papers.
Be prepared to present and discuss your project, [https://www.artsrn.ualberta.ca/ccewiki/index.php/Music_for_Global_Human_Development_-_Winter_2020_syllabus#Project_Presentation_and_Report_Structure structured as required in the syllabus] (aim/significance/background/methods/progress to date/impact assessment plan/module); your colleagues will provide feedback.  Your extended project proposal/report draft is due next Tuesday (Week 12).  I will provide feedback on that by the following weekend, in time for your Google Slides presentations, which will happen in Weeks 13 and 14.  These will then form the basis for your final papers.  


We may also begin a final musical unit: Hindustani music (''raga'' and ''tala''), as taught by the celebrated musician Ravi Shankar (if not today then Thursday).
Note that you will each provide feedback on everyone else's proposals via Google Forms. [https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfhA4_1ObBrYtYF_C89O-PZk-FBmz5oS3NprVf2hOZwXx_XDw/viewform The link is on eClass and here]. We'll do this again for the final presentations. In this way you'll have plenty of feedback from classmates as well as from me.


== Thursday ==
We will also try to begin a final musical unit: [https://drive.google.com/open?id=1uEVCMcvhE4yVcVaaGXRe7-6izC7oTcQ1 Hindustani music as taught by the celebrated musician Ravi Shankar] (if not today then we'll begin on Thursday), introducing basic tonal and modal concepts of ''raga'' and ''tala''.  Note that in this course I'm giving you short introductions to the musics of our three world music ensembles - MENAME (Middle Eastern and North African Music Ensemble), WAME (West African Music Ensemble), and IME (Indian Music Ensemble): MENAME rhythmic cycles (durub) and modes (maqamat), WAME polymelorhythmic drumming, singing, and dancing (Kinka), and IME rhythms and modes! If you'd like to learn more about any of these vast reservoirs of musical knowledge and practice you might consider taking one of those ensembles next year!


See reading and writing assignment on eClass, on dehumanization in war, and rehumanization through music. We will discuss the in class. We will continue with Hindustani music, as taught by the celebrated musician Ravi Shankar.
== Thursday: Dehumanization, Rehumanization, and Social Networks ==
 
See reading and writing assignment on eClass, on dehumanization in war, and rehumanization through music, with attention to social and actor networks. We will discuss the reading in class, and think about how you can conceptualize your own work in a similar manner. We will also continue with Hindustani music.
 
= Week 12:  24-Mar & 26-Mar =
 
== Tuesday: project proposals, and Hindustani music ==
 
Revise your project proposals, extended towards the final report format. See [https://www.artsrn.ualberta.ca/ccewiki/index.php/Music_for_Global_Human_Development_-_Winter_2020_syllabus#Project_Presentation_and_Report_Structure syllabus] for format (though some of the later sections may be sketchy or absent at this point), and [http://bit.ly/m4ghd20e eClass] for submission. This document will provide the basis for your presentations next week, and the final papers after that.
 
Begin the Indian Hindustani music unit:
* First watch this introductory video, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0fSUOiar0k Raga: a personal introduction by Ravi Shankar].  He has a beautiful way of explaining complex concepts (raga, alap) very simply.  (for fun you might like to watch him [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxI6IkH9Mvo teaching sitar to George Harrison in 1968!])
* Then [https://drive.google.com/open?id=15HeAEGrqUFGFiy81yiEIVczX5CaKvMTu listen to tape 1 side A] (a [https://drive.google.com/open?id=1RlTDV16hDpOqZ6yZnZ1ptim26Vm_2_Dt table of contents] is here), performing all the exercises along with the group while listening.
* Next, using your phone or any device, record yourself solo, while performing the following exercises from that tape:
** Singing the two ''that''-s (scales), ''bilaval'' and ''kalyan'', up and down, using the Indian solfege ''swara'' (note) syllables (sa-re-ga-ma-pa-dha-ni-sa) and clapping in 5 rhythmic patterns, exactly as in the recording (from 10:15 - 11:50, and then 13:45 - 15:20)
** Saying the two ''tala''-s, rhythmic cycles, verbalized using their ''theka''-s (syllables):  ''tintal'' (16 ''matra''-s or beats) and ''jhaptal'' (10 matra-s). Note the fascinating concept of ''khali'', which has no real equivalent in Western music.
** Upload your recording to eClass (I just want to see how you did, in part to know how to approach this material. I'm not going to hold you to high musical standards!)
 
In class:  [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dIFuSyTNZnAaCacLw_c2lXqr7hCdzxFIeQYZsyEjiOI/edit?usp=sharing here's the spreadsheet I presented, with a number of useful video links...], in case you want to review. 
 
'''''AGAIN...please try to use our workshop materials in your projects. This doesn't necessarily mean adding African, Arab, or Indian music, or adding theatre, or experimental music, or anything in particular....it just means widening your musical horizons, by letting yourself be inspired by musical sounds, concepts, and interactions that may be new for you.'''''
 
== Thursday: multi/inter/transculturalism & M4GHD ==
 
=== Preparation for class: ===
 
* Read:
** [http://login.ezproxy.library.ualberta.ca/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=9501111669&site=ehost-live&scope=site Things Fall Together], by Cornwell & Stoddard (you will have to login via UofA)  [9 pages]
** [https://doi-org.login.ezproxy.library.ualberta.ca/10.1177/0191453711435656 Interculturalism or multiculturalism?] by Charles Taylor (you will have to login via UofA) [10 pages]
** [https://is.muni.cz/el/1421/podzim2013/CJVA1M/43514039/reading_3_Transculturality.pdf Multiculturalism or Transculturalism: Towards a Cosmopolitan Citizenship], by  Donald Cuccioletta [7 pages]
* Write: 2 paragraphs on the readings (submit on eClass):
# In brief: What are multiculturalism, interculturalism, and transculturalism? How do they differ?  How do authors' perspectives differ and why? (refer to readings:  Cornwell & Stoddard, Taylor, and Cuccioletta)  What is your own opinion regarding the relative social value of multiculturalism, interculturalism, and transculturalism, in Canada, or in any socially diverse society characterized by immigration?  What are the pros/cons of each towards promoting cultural continuity, social integration, and social justice, and why?
# How can music (generally) and M4GHD (as applied ethno research) help advance and support each of them, in theory or in practice, generally or in Edmonton specifically (provide an example from your own project), and thereby also support cultural continuity, social integration, and social justice?
* Listening and singing in Hindustani music:  listen to [https://drive.google.com/open?id=1pNU973tGBCRBdw4pj7fUWmfve8HGcMni tape 1 side B], performing all the exercises along with the group while listening.  We won't have time to finish the series but if you're interested I encourage you to do so on your own. It will provide you with a strong basis for further study in Hindustani music, as well as contribute to your musical self-development.
 
=== In class:===
 
* Discussion of the readings. What are they about? What did you think of them?
* Discussion of multiculturalism, interculturalism, and transculturalism - their differences, value, and relation to M4GHD, especially as applied to Canadian society and culture. 
* Key questions:
** Vision: what does the ideal Canadian society look like? What are the goals? (humanization? human rights? social justice?)
** Strategy: How is ''difference'' to be respected and maintained without compromising the goals?
** How are multiple identities and cultures to be connected?
** How does (should) it evolve when newcomers arrive? What ought to change, and what ought to stay the same?
** How should its social fabric be woven, ensuring both continuity (intergenerationally) and cohesion (interculturally)? 
** What Canadian values will remain, and what may change?
** How can music (M4GHD) facilitate the weaving process, and the integration of newcomers (whether immigrants or refugees) to Canada? Socially? Culturally? 
** How to decolonize the process? Who should be involved in M4GHD? Who has the right to participate, and how does "identity politics" figure in? What is the value of PAR here?
* Introduction to the [http://bit.ly/edtror Edmonton Transcultural Orchestra], representing and facilitating an idealized society.
 
Please also raise any questions pertaining to the next two weeks of presentations or final assignments.  We should formalize the presentation order today. Remember that presentations need to be concise - cover all the points in about 10 minutes maximum, to allow time for up to five presentations per day, plus questions (figuring a total of 15 min (=10 min presentation + 5 min questions) per person, plus a minute for transitions).
 
= Week 13:  31-Mar & 2-Apr =
 
Student presentations (10-12 minutes each).  ''Please submit your presentation via eClass by 31 March 2pm.''
 
= Week 14:  7-Apr (last class) =
 
 
Student presentations (10-12 minutes each).
 
Note: April 7 is our last class; there is no class on April 9.
 
= Week 15 =
 
No class.  Final reports due Friday, 17-Apr, end of day. Submit via eClass.
 
Have a great summer!!

Revision as of 12:49, 26 March 2020

short link to this course schedule page: http://bit.ly/m4ghd20s

Week 1: 07-Sep & 09-Sep: Introduction

Tues

  • Welcome to M4GHD!
  • Course premise: Music is a Social Technology...it does something! (Brainstorm: what can music do?)
  • In this class we'll learn about music's social power by reading & discussing & writing....but also by experiencing and doing.
    • Tuesdays: academic didactic/discursive/critical learning (propositional knowledge)
    • Thursdays: experiential learning (procedural knowledge): musicking (EVERYONE can communicate through music)
    • Outside of class: homework, and Community Service Learning projects in the community.
  • Self-introductions
  • A few definitions for this class:
    • "Music": extended to "expressive performance" and other media)
    • "Ethnomusicology": extended in sound, media, context, disciplinary lens
    • "Applied ethnomusicology": operating outside the usual boundaries of the academy (research and teaching)
    • "Music for Global Human Development" (M4GHD): an approach to applied ethnomusicology that entails participatory action research projects in music & development (humanized in aims and methods), centered on global collaborations between academics, NGOs, government organizations, musicians, and others, applying ethnomusicology to real-world social issues, focusing on peoples who have been marginalized--socially, politically, economically--by colonialism and its aftermath, whether in the "developing" world or not, and linking them to others across the globe.

M4GHD and Rosie

  • M4GHD: deploying music as a social technology, for connection. How does that work? Understanding through experience...
  • Let's jump right in with the experiential: Connecting through song: performing Rosie.
  • What is the social power of music? What does music do for people? (for you, for inmates...) How does it establish connection? What is the source of this power? Make a list of musical features. How does music adapt?
  • Divide into subgroups and create your own version of Rosie.
  • This is roots music - it comes from the people, from below, without commercial intent. A prison work song, recorded by Alan Lomax in the 1940s.
  • What about the system? How is Rosie repurposed within the music economy?
    • Rosie via David Guetta ft. Nicki Minaj ("Hey mama") - appropriation by the music system?
    • What do you hear? World musical influences?
    • How has the meaning changed?
    • Celebration of the original? Or exploitation? Cultural appropriation?
    • What is "music as social technology" doing here, quite differently than in the original?
    • (What are the implications for "world music"?)
    • See this article by Jeff Miers.

More about the course...

  • M4GHD
  • This class is about M4GHD, but it also is itself a M4GHD project!
  • It entails Community Service Learning. Everyone will have a placement.
  • In this class you will create a mini M4GHD project as a response to needs and constraints of your CSL placement, donating 20 hours of your time over the term.
  • CSL organizations: a variety of organizations have offered placements...representatives will be visiting us over the next two weeks to help you decide where you'd like to volunteer. Consult this list.
  • Among other assignments, you'll maintain a log on eClass
  • Introduction to CSL and the CSL Certificate. Set up via portal. 20 hours of CSL during the term, replacing other work.
  • Easy to remember URL shorteners:
    • bit.ly/m4ghd20 = syllabus
    • bit.ly/m4ghd20e = eClass
    • bit.ly/m4ghd20s = schedule
  • Course syllabus review (note what is due next Thursday)

Thurs

Announcements

  • Set up your log file (via eClass: see "Student field note logs Wiki")

Due today

Ideas: music of by and for the people

  • Musical adaptation via participation - Tarab: Sabah Fakhri
  • Too much music separates us rather than connecting us.
  • M4GHD should connect through thought-feeling (ideas and emotions) and interaction. Some features:
    • Avoid the visual. Music is an auditory art.
    • Inclusive style : Not too virtuosic. No high wire acts. Keep it slow and easy, or at least provide parts that enable participation.
    • Body music central. Everyone has a body, including voice. Not everyone has a bass clarinet.
    • Vocal timbre : accommodating of all voices
    • Range : medium; flexible (jump by octave or sometimes another interval also, to stay in range)
    • Pitch : microtonality, wide tonemes - expressive, flexible
    • Scale : open notes ("tonemes"), blue notes... pentatonic leaves more space.
    • Notes: avoid the discrete; go for the expressive gesture. Musical elements need not be discrete "notes".
    • Polyphony : flexible shifting of lines
    • Melody : Improvisation (limited or extensive), often collective - using responsive rules of interaction, encourage connection
    • Harmony : octave as well as fourth fifth third equivalents, allows folding of range
    • Meter : polymeters provide more than one way to fit in (12=6*2, 12=4*3)
    • Form : call and response or interlocking, hocket (connecting). Longer flexible patterns
    • Improvisation and flexibility: there's room for individual expression, without compromising the whole. But improvisation has a range and an ideal number of "rules", and there's a bell curve of rules: too many or too few rules are constraining. See Stravinsky, The Poetics of Music, p. 63.
    • Lyrics: collectively composed by all participants, maybe improvised? Repetition and vocables make it easier.
  • Rosie performances
"The creator's function is to sift the elements he receives from [imagination], for human activity must impose limits upon itself. The more art is controlled, limited, worked over, the more it is free" - Igor Stravinsky, The Poetics of Music, p. 63

CSL option

Graham Strauss, Children & Youth Settlement Services, Edmonton Immigrant Services Association

Week 2: 14-Sep & 16-Sep

Tues

Very brief welcome...thanks for your patience last week (NB: I'm still getting caught up...)...and then...

CSL options

  • 2:00 pm The Sarah McLachlan School of Music
  • 2:20 pm Sinkunia Development Organization: Joseph Luri
  • 2:40 pm Chantelle Goulart, Volunteer Coordinator, Cerebral Palsy Association in Alberta (deferred)

M4GHD/course overview

Preliminaries

  • Introductions: Michael Frishkopf, Gabriel Ojakovo. Office hours, contacts...
  • Everyone please introduce yourselves once more. (Please consider adding a photo to your UofA gmail account)
  • Syllabus review: Please submit assignments via eClass ("About me")
  • CSL signup procedure: see eClass under Week 2.
  • Set up your field notes document as a Google Doc; add its link to the appropriate eClass wiki, and share access with me.
  • Note:
    • If your placement requires a Police Information Check, you will need to follow the instructions outlined in the "Other" section of the project description.
    • If your placement requires a Youth Intervention Record Check, CSL will facilitate this. Bring 2 pieces of ID to the CSL Office to complete the your Check during Youth Check Week: January 15-22.

Some concepts....some questions...

  • What is Ethnomusicology (henceforth EM)? Musicology (the study of music), but ethno-extended in 3 dimensions, thereby enclosing "music" in "context":
    • (1) scope of "music" as cultural construct ("world music") and in the world of sound (e.g. Javanese gamelan; Qur'anic recitation) and beyond to performance arts and expressive culture generally; extending from music to poetry, dance, costume, drama...;
    • (2) context of music as situated in performance space-time as well as in culture and history (e.g. a Yeve shrine ritual in Ghana, part of Ewe culture; the history of bluegrass);
    • (3) multiple disciplinary approaches to its study, to encompass all fields of arts, humanities, social science, science (e.g. approaches from anthropology, political science, literature, geography, economics, computer science, biology, health science...)
  • Can you give me some examples of these extensions? Consider Rosie as a work song, in cultural and historical context.
  • Ethno-musicology (2,3: focus on contextual musicology) vs. Ethnomusic-ology (1: focus on generalized "music")
  • What is "world music"? (hint: consider the first extension, and consider classes rather than instances)
  • What is Applied Ethnomusicology? (Ethnomusicology operating outside the academy, towards broader social transformations.) Examples?
  • What is Music for Global Human Development (http://M4GHD.org)? Music as a (Psycho-)Social Technology. Aims and methods. Helping to ameliorate BIG problems (racism, war, disease, poverty, displacement, social integration) stemming from dehumanization, through MUSICAL RECONNECTION. Listen to this nay.

KEY ELEMENTS of M4GHD

  • Participatory Action Research (PAR): collaborative, grassroots, sustainable, helical process (cycle: plan/act/observe/reflect (scroll down). Line: upwards progress) through a social network.
  • Expressive musical communication ("thought-feeling") for humanistic development (cf: Culture and Development, Communication for Development C4D, Edutainment), forging a network through musical co-participation.
  • Generalized music: includes sound, expressive culture, talk/behavior about music...
  • Open participation, inclusive approach to entire PAR process, broadening the network
  • Music: Flexibility (timbral, rhythmic, tonal) & Improvisation, enabling...
  • ...feedback through the network...leading to adaptation & thus resonance...starting with the PAR network itself.
  • M4(GHD)=M4(DGH): Music for "global human development"....Music for development of the "global human"

Thurs

CSL options and info

2:00 pm: Jay Hrycun Assistant Principal Bracco school, and music teacher (via Skype)

2:20 pm: Jay Friesen from CSL

2:40 pm: info from Chantelle Goulart, Cerebral Palsy Association in Alberta (see http://bit.ly/m4ghd20g)

Preliminaries

  • "About me"?
  • Attendance
  • eClass usage

Due today

What makes music a powerful psycho-social technology? (submit 1-2 paragraphs on eClass) Jot down your own brainstorm on this topic.

Workshop: Rosie; (melo)rhythmic cycles, rhythmic call/response, and interlock

In Western music meter usually not externalized in a recurring pattern, but it does serve as a social binder, holding musicians and listeners together.

In other musics, meter is more overt, as rhythmic patterns cycle, repeating over and over.

Arabic rhythmic cycles. Arabic durub, constructed out of "dum", "tek", "iss".

Such cycles bind participants together, setting the stage for resonance.

The call and response form models social relationships. We heard a melodic instance in Rosie, in the relation between pentatonic call and response melodies.

Call and response also happens through rhythm, likewise modeling social relationships. Such call and response patterns can be very short, to the point of hocket or "interlock": a melody or rhythm divided up among parts.

Balinese cycles: kecak: Co-developed by German painter-musician Walter Spies in the 1930s with local musicians and dancers, while living in Bali, based on an older trance dance (sanghyang), this "monkey chant" tells part of the story of the Hindu epic, the Ramayana, as protagonist Rama is assisted by Hanuman, the monkey king. The dance represents traditional interlocking instrumental music, but also serves as a tourist draw (We may learn to perform this next time!)

Cyclic patterns need not all be constructed of the same sound. Rather sounds can differ in pitch, or timbre, or both. Consider "dum" and "tek": low and high, different sounds. They can also overlap.

Week 3: 21-Jan & 23-Jan

Tuesday

Preparation: Reading/browsing/listening/writing

... to be completed before class. Come prepared with thoughts, comments, and questions for discussion (see eClass for assignments to be submitted)

  • Read: “Music for Global Human Development and Refugees” (pp. 304-311)," by M. Frishkopf.
  • Read and Listen: "Giving Voice to Hope" CD: listen to the CD, read the liner notes, observe the artwork and photos. Also peruse the website: http://bit.ly/buducd . How does this sort of project fit into the "applied ethnomusicology" and M4GHD frameworks? What might be the impact of such a CD?
  • Browse: Research Ethics documents
  • Browse: CSL site. The steps for CSL enrollment are listed on eClass.
  • Write reviews (see below): one paragraph summary/critique of my article "Music for Global Human Development and Refugees" (what are the assumptions? basic concepts and mechanism? limitations?), and a second paragraph on the CD/liner notes "Giving Voice to Hope" (how does it fit under M4GHD? Which artists/tracks/texts do you think are most impactful and for whom - and why?) Note: the website http://bit.ly/budu also references published reviews. (submit on eClass Jan 21, week 3)

Note: For these and all reviews: write your review (just 1-2 paragraphs each) in two parts: (1) summarize the "work"; (2) offer your critical appraisal.

In class

Thurs

Preparation: rhythmic cycles

  • Read/play through Arabic rhythmic cycles, paying attention to the "dum" and "tek" patterns, especially maqsum, masmudi, sa`idi, wahda, bamb, malfuf, on this chart. Compare on this site, and check out its cool dum-tek rhythm generator
  • Compose a piece consisting of a sequence of different Arabic rhythms, each repeated a certain number of times. (For instance, you might repeat maqsum 4x, then wahda once, then bamb 4x, etc.)
  • Learn to perform each part in this Balinese Kecak notation
  • Compose your own interlocking cyclic form to try out with the class. Your form should include 2-4 different parts. (You can create a variation on the Kecak, or something entirely new. You can introduce a notation (use different symbols to indicate different sounds), or plan to teach in some other way, by ear.) What sound resources would you like to include? Body/vocal music is simplest, but you can also use other materials. Submit your composition on eClass for Jan 23.
  • Bring any materials necessary to perform your compositions (Arabic or Kecak) to class!

In class

  • Perform: Kecak
  • Perform: Your compositions:

After performing visually try to internalize it as an aural call/response or interlock pattern, freeing up the eyes to make connections within the performing group. Note how notation can be socially fragmenting, although it's a convenient way to compose and remember.

Week 4: 28-Jan & 30-Jan

Tues: Ethnomusicology and Applied Ethnomusicology

Reading/browsing/reviewing

To be completed prior to class:

Review the following three works, submitting your review on eClass for today (write 3 paragraphs, one per work)

Also:

Today: concepts and questions for Ethnomusicology, writ broadly

Ted Gioia interview and talk: How does/can music change your life? Community, Society? History?
Key insights? Favorite quotes? Critiques?

Ethnomusicology and Applied Ethnomusicology: Tim Rice and Jeff Titon

  • What is Ethnomusicology (henceforth EM)? Musicology (the study of music), but ethno-extended in 3 dimensions, thereby enclosing "music" in "context":
    • (1) scope of "music" as cultural construct and in the world of sound (e.g. Javanese gamelan; Qur'anic recitation); extending from music to ethnomusic (e.g. ethnomusic-ology), to paramusic to poetry, dance, costume, drama...;
    • (2) context of music as situated in performance space-time as well as in society, culture and history (e.g. a Yeve shrine ritual in Ghana, part of Ewe culture; the history of bluegrass); e.g. "ethno-musicology" as contextual musicology.
    • (3) disciplinary approaches to its study, to encompass all fields of arts, humanities, social science, science (e.g. approaches from anthropology, political science...), e.g. "ethno-musicology" as anthropology of music.
  • Can you give me some examples of these extensions? Consider Rosie as a work song, in cultural and historical context.
  • Ethno-musicology (2,3) vs. Ethnomusic-ology (1)
  • What is "world music"? (hint: consider one of the extensions, and consider classes rather than instances)
  • What does "Music" include? Generalizing...
    • The usual academic definition
    • Pleasing tones
    • "Humanly organized sound" - John Blacking
    • Concepts, behaviors, discourses & sounds
    • All associated expressive culture, from entertainment to rarified "art" (dance, poetry, theatre, costume, ritual)
    • Music in the broadest sense: All talk about music including...Ethnomusicology!
  • Critical reading of Rice; think about his definitions - which ones do you prefer? come up with your own! (5 min)

  • Applied Ethnomusicology
    • What is Applied Ethnomusicology? (Ethnomusicology operating outside the academy, towards broader social transformations.) Examples?
    • Ethics tends to come to the fore here: striving for change, but what sort of change?
    • Ethical ethnomusicology. What is ethics? Consequentialist and deontological approaches. What are the ethical issues that might arise in M4GHD in general? For your CSL work in this class? Ethics approvals for this class and what you need to know.
    • How is study (-ology) different from action? Ethnomusicology vs. Ethnomusicaction?
    • Music as transformation: How can EM as Music create positive change in the world?
    • PAR approaches

(already reviewed last time...)

  • What is Music for Global Human Development (http://M4GHD.org)? Music as a (Psycho-)Social Technology. Aims and methods. Helping to ameliorate BIG problems (racism, war, disease, poverty, displacement, social integration) stemming from dehumanization, through MUSICAL RECONNECTION. Listen to this nay. KEY ELEMENTS of M4GHD:
    • Participatory Action Research (PAR): collaborative, grassroots, sustainable, helical process (cycle: plan/act/observe/reflect. Line: upwards progress) through a social network.
    • Expressive musical communication ("thought-feeling") for humanistic development (cf: Culture and Development, Communication for Development C4D, Edutainment)
    • Open participation, inclusive approach to entire PAR process, broadening the network
    • Music: Flexibility (timbral, rhythmic, tonal) & Improvisation, enabling...
    • ...feedback through the network...leading to adaptation & thus resonance...starting with the PAR network itself.
    • M4(GHD)=M4(DGH): Music for "global human development"....Music for development of the "global human"
  • What is Community Music Therapy (CMT)? An extension of Music Therapy (MT) situating musical healing in a broader social context. (CMT : MT :: EM : Musicology)

So we wind up with concentric circles on a Venn diagram:

  • Ethnomusicology
    • Applied Ethnomusicology
      • PAR Ethnomusicology
        • M4GHD

"Giving Voice to Hope" as M4GHD


FIELDWORK as the key methodology, especially: 1) Participant observation and fieldnotes 2) Informal interviews - conversations, and fieldnotes

Notes can be:

  • written or mental (eventually the former!)
  • concurrent or subsequent

What to capture? Everything! Your impressions, thoughts, ideas...Getting direct quotes can be important.

Thurs: Exercises

Before class: participant observation exercise

  • Visit any "musical context" (this could be a rehearsal, concert, restaurant or cafe with music, your CSL placement, etc.) for 30 min or so. Practice your participant-observation skills: participate, i.e. join in (whatever "joining in" that means in the given context), but also keenly observe what's going on: who is where and doing what and why? What is the music and what does music appear to do for/to them? Include yourself!

Diagram the context and how it changes as people and music flow through it. Deliberately adopt two different locations: (a) and (b) (they could be different spots in a cafe for instance - anything to give you two perspectives on what is going on).

How to record this information? Practice (1) taking mental notes in location (a) and (2) making jottings (condensed notes) in location (b). Then afterwards write up both (1) and (2) in a single paragraphs of full notes (2 paragraphs total).

On eClass submit:

  • description and diagram of the place you visited
  • jottings (you can upload an image if you want)
  • full notes (from locations (a) and (b), and
  • your impressions of the differences between mental notes and jottings...

(Note: you can do this nearly anywhere music is being played!)

In class: EM Exercises

1) Interviewing: We'll spend about 25 min to interview in pairs on two topics: (a) musical experiences, (b) how has music changed your life?. Compare taking physical notes and mental notes: A ask B about (a) then B ask A about (b), all with notes. Then repeat but reverse topics and without notes. Come together to discuss the experience.

2) Arabic maqamat: Musical exercises to stretch your ears! See http://maqamworld.com for much more...

Week 5: 4-Feb & 6-Feb

Tues: Ethics

To be completed prior to class

  • Ethics: assigned previously; just review.
  • Community music therapy: Access the online book Where music helps: community music therapy in action and reflection. In Part I, read Chapter 1 (Introduction: Music and Health in Community) and skim Chapter 2 (Situating Authors and Projects). Then select any of the subsequent Parts (II through IX), and read/skim the two chapters contained within: the first "Action", and the second "Reflection".
  • Submit Week 5 assignment as described on eClass.

In class

System colonization of the Lifeworld (Habermas), and the role of M4GHD

  • Berners-Lee and Web
  • The Corporation
  • The role of M4GHD: to repair the lifeworld by strengthening the social fabric, the network of "I-thou" human connection, both locally and globally - to support empathy and compassion...
  • ... to ensure a global human development...as well as the development of the global human.
  • Such repair is an ethical imperative. At the same time participants in M4GHD projects -- indeed all ethnomusicological researchers -- must to be mindful of their ethical status.
  • Participatory Action Research is one strategy to help ensure that the project team itself is a model of social fabric, and a method towards reweaving the social fabric. We'll read more about it next week.
  • Health Research is most sensitive to ethical issues. Health Canada's Research Ethics Board (REB) follows the ethical principles set out in the Tri-Council Policy Statement.
  • Today I want to examine ethics in a bit more detail....in ethnomusicology and in general.

Ethical dimensions of M4GHD and Ethnomusicological research generally

  • Ethics: the Good.
    • Human rights, such as freedom and equality, as minima (equal inputs) and emergence (where freedom, say, may lead to inequality)
    • Social justice (equal outcomes; may require equity rather than equality on input)
    • Deontological vs. Consequentialist approaches towards Ethical Action.
  • Key ethical principles (cited in research literature) balance the deontological (duty: action inputs, intentions) with the consequentialist (action outcomes, cost/benefit assessments). The following are often cited:
    • Humanity: respecting human dignity and rights--minima--and avoiding exploitation (duty)
    • Beneficence (ensuring that good outweighs harm) (outcome)
    • Equality (social justice, equal outcomes)
    • Informed consent (dignity; duty)
    • Privacy: anonymity and confidentiality, as requested (duty)
  • Philosophical ethics
    • The Trolley problem
    • Traditional ethics: The Golden Rule
    • Kantian ethics - the categorical imperative
    • Habermas: Communicative Action (treating people as a communicative end, not a means - illocutionary mood)
    • Utilitarians: consequential summation
    • Why is ethics important for ethnomusicology?
    • Why is it especially important for applied ethnomusicology (and M4GHD projects)?
      • The ethical impetus behind M4GHD (and Community Music Therapy) itself
      • Their focus on disempowered or marginalized communities
      • Potential pitfalls: can you think of ethical problems that may arise in the course of ethnomusicological research? (think about conflicts in "doing the right thing" conflict?)
    • Breakout session:
      • Ethical conundrums! How would you solve them?
      • Come up with an ethnomusicological conundrum of your own.
  • Research Ethics documents at the UofA

Thurs: Community Music Therapy and West African polymelorhythms

Community Music Therapy

  • The Community Music Therapy (CMT) approach.
    • Who what where when how?
    • Contrast with "traditional" music therapy
    • Is Ethnomusicology to Musicology as Community Music therapy is to ordinary music therapy? In what ways?
    • Evaluate the impact of new trends in music scholarship, especially the turn towards the social (in ethnomusicology but also in musicology)
  • CMT and this course
    • How does it apply to our CSL environments, designed to promote wellbeing through partnerships with local organizations?
    • How would you link CMT and M4GHD?
  • Reflect upon the various projects you read about & be prepared to discuss the chapters you selected
    • How successful were these projects?
    • What inspirations can you draw on for your own projects?

African cycles: melorhythm, call/response, interlock, and polyrhythms

West African cycles. Features:

  • Melorhythm (rhythm and melody are entangled, only separable in theory)
  • Social drumming
  • Call/response (question/answer) and interlock (hocket)
  • Polyrhythm and polymeter (rhythms crossing each other)

These features have social implications, as follows:

  • Melorhythm: humanized rhythm, taking on vocal qualities (hence vocables); possibility of harmonization of multiple cycles

Between rhythm and melody proper is "melo-rhythm" (a concept invented by Nigerian musicologist MEKI NZEWI), with melodic character, by using different pitches or timbres.

"I use the term melo-rhythmic to refer to a rhythmic organization melodically conceived and melodically born. This kind of organization should be recognized as having a different orientation than the kind in which the rhythm of a music has a more independent derivation and function. In West African folk music the rhythms of the percussion are firmly rooted in the melo-rhythmic essence, not in the abstract depersonalised percussion function typical of Western percussive style." -- from Meki Nzewi, "Melo-Rhythmic Essence and Hot Rhythm in Nigerian Folk Music",The Black Perspective in Music, Vol. 2, No. 1 (Spring, 1974).
  • Here is Gahu, a polymelorhythmic cycle from the Ewe people of Ghana, featuring supporting instruments: sogo, kidi, kagan, gankogui, axatse. Note that drumming here is social. The drumset (single drummer) expands into a drumming section, binding participants together in social drumming. Thus whereas in drumset the mind is integrated, in social drumming an entire group is integrated.
  • Call/response and interlock: emphasizing social relationships through temporal interdependence; "listening to the silence". (performance is a social phenomenon; e.g. the drumset becomes a drumming ensemble)
  • Polyrhythm and polymeter: demonstrating contrastive "temporal world views" existing in simultaneous harmony, tolerance: defining simultaneous group orientations, unity in diversity. Stronger polyrhythms emerge from subdividing a time span in radically different ways. This is often called "cross-rhythm".

We find melo-polyrhythmic call/response/interlock social drumming cycles in most regions and many traditions of Africa.


  • The various so-called "Pygmy" (Mbuti, Baka, etc.) cultures of central Africa exhibit amazing interlocking melorhythms. Hear these historic recordings by Colin Turnbull, Music Of The Rain Forest Pygmies, from Congo. We may take up this topic in a later workshop.
  • Simple examples are 3:2 or 4:3 (3 against 2, 4 against 3).
  • E.g.: beat your open palms against your things, alternating 3 times: right/left/right/left/right/left.
    • Place extra emphasis on groups of 3 (RIGHT left right LEFT right left).
    • Now stamp your feet along with RIGHT and LEFT. Next, make your left hand into a fist (so it gets quieter) and listen to 3:2. ** Finally, alternate the right hand slap with a fist, and hear 3:4.
  • Listen to the standard Ewe bell part: XOXOXXOXOXOX. Clap subdivisions to indicate divisions of 4 (12=4x3) or 6 (12=6x2) or 3 (12=3x4).
  • Hear the various parts interacting in Agbekor.
  • Watch presentation on cultural context for Agbekor

In your groups, create a polymelorhythm. You may incorporate also call/response and interlock if you wish. Use notations if you wish but only as a transitional phase (the "shoehorn" approach, also applied to concepts of ethnomusicology and world music), to be dispensed with as soon as possible. The visual tends to distract from the people, and diminishes music's social impact.

Music as a social technology should be aural and embodied - the individual and the social body.

  • You can write out pieces using cyclic or even western notation. See my piece: "Mbaka Experiment", inspired by “Mbaka” song. Note how the four parts interlock…they don’t start at the same place, and they fill each other’s gaps.
  • You can also continue to use the circular "box" notation we deployed last week (worksheets available)
  • Or you can just work aurally.
  • The symbols you write in the circles need not all be the same - try using different symbols for different sounds, pitches, syllables, including claps and stamps, and maybe dance moves...
  • Beyond the cycle, consider: how could you incorporate variations? Improvisations? Cues for starting, stopping, or transitioning? Maybe make a piece with several cycles and the ability to jump between them. Or variations for each "part". Or rules for improvisation on the existing parts...

Week 6: 11-Feb and 13-Feb

Tues: Participatory Action Research and Sustainable Development

In preparation for class

Watch:

Read:

Review: Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) How can development become sustainable? What is the role of participation?

Browse: Music and PAR:

  • Browse and critique the Singing and Dancing for Health project in northern Ghana, conceived as participatory action research through music. (There are a few videos, papers, and posters...you don't have to read or watch everything). Where does it succeed? where does it fall short, and why?

Write: 2 short paragraphs, to submit on eClass (text box)

  • What is PAR and what is its value?
  • How can PAR draw on ethnomusicology and music (and related performing arts: dance, poetry, drama…)? How can ethnomusicological fieldwork become a kind of "participatory research"? Summarize and critique the "singing and dancing for health" project as an instance. (http://bit.ly/sngdnc4h)

Write: very preliminary project proposal (you can submit this as an uploaded file). One page or less: what is your project? how does it implement the M4GHD model, including PAR? what is the aim and why is it important? what exactly will you do? what sort of "music" is involved? how will you implement it? what resources are required? how can you make it sustainable? how will you assess it? You'll submit a draft; I'll provide feedback, and then you'll submit a revised version after reading week. This will form the initial segment of your final report.

In class

  • Fieldnotes
    • Give me access!
    • Not everyone is writing. Be sure you write every time you visit your site.
    • Mostly are "thin". Bullet lists are fine for "jottings" but not for the final notes. Jot, but then expand.
    • Enrich through reflection, interpretation of experience (hermeneutic phenomenology), reflexivity (autoethnography).
    • Examples of my fieldnotes from Egypt
  • What is participatory research?
    • Participant Observation method. The emic; phenomenology (Schutz), verstehen (Weber): entering the "lifeworld" of local meaning and communication, interpretation, translation of meaning - creating social connection
    • This is "normal science" for ethnomusicology today! We speak of "participants" not "subjects" much less "objects". Participation is hallmark of ethnomusicology: meaning, Insider views, respect, dignity.
    • But: we don't always see this approach in development or applied work. "Advocacy" - Advocate - a person who pleads on someone else's behalf: care managers can become advocates for their clients.
    • Implications of participation:
      • Ethics: Dignity, respect, giving voice, empowering: humanizing the other - the "I thou" relation of Martin Buber
      • Pragmatics: giving voice, goal of interpretation towards meaning (rather than: empiricism towards law), guiding, sustaining
  • What is PAR? Advantages? Disadvantages?
    • PAR as entailing an intercultural social network - and resonance (emergent structure), to become social fabric (humanistic connection), turning objective (I - it) to subjective (I thou) relations. Rehumanization.
    • Strengthening the lifeworld through interconnection with people you probably wouldn't otherwise meet. The "global human" is you!
    • Ethical: giving voice (http://bit.ly/buducd), empowerment, self-respect, independence, autonomy, agency.
    • Pragmatic: giving voice, empowerment, self-respect, independence, autonomy, agency.
      • Project guidance from within: More effective expenditure of resources,
      • Sustainability: more local buy-in,more likely to endure.
    • PAR aims in this class? Here: social integration, understanding, for marginalized populations in Edmonton
  • Instances: You'll write a preliminary proposal for next week
    • Your project ideas and how PAR may apply. Possibilities. Generalizing "music" (music, poetry, dance, drama, games...art, food?). Title/par overview (aim, method) due next week. Go ahead and work together but everyone needs to have their own project. Don't forget field notes! (& don't wait to write)
    • Consider "Singing and Dancing for Health". How was the project PAR? What could have been improved?
  • A close reading of Kemmis and McTaggart: PAR + Practice Theory + Habermas
    • PAR: A social practice (research) geared towards positive change in social practice (lifeworld): i.e. towards human rights, emancipation, social justice - new ways of social being
    • Key concepts, dyads and triads:
      • Dialectics: dynamic and complementary processes out of which emerges a larger whole
      • Triad: Material/Economic (things), Social (relationships), Symbolic/Cultural (meanings).
      • Dyads: The Social (intersubjective) and the individual (subjective - psychic); Socialization and Individuation; & the dialectic between the two
      • Triad: Social Practices (what we do in a social space): Communication, Production, Organization
      • Dyad: Social Practice and Social System/structure (economic, social, symbolic); the dialectic between the two
      • Dyad and triad: Individual Knowledge (understandings=theoretical or propositional, skills=practice or procedural, values: axiological=morality/truth/beauty) vs Social Media (language, work, power); dialectic between the two
      • Critical view (Etic): contextualizing within the big picture predicament (e.g. poverty's structural causes in globalization)
      • Phenomenological view (Emic), experience (e.g. what it's like to be homeless)
    • Close reading of the article

Thurs: polymelorhythms - KINKA!

Simultaneous call/response singing, dancing, and drumming, all linked together in what the Ewes call a Vu (Drum).


Kinka M4GHD project - background: read about Norvor the composer, and the structure of the benevolent or funeral society. Watch some of the videos of the recording session. What roles do music and dance play for this group? How did the cassette/CD project help reinvigorate the tradition?

Here's a real Kinka performance from Avenorpedo, Norvor's hometown. It's not professionally done but I like it as an insider's view, most likely, probably videoing with a mobile phone as people do these days. Skip ahead in the video to see the intensive drumming section, similar to what we did today. Note that the most prominent element is always singing, not drumming! (Western audiences for African music tend to focus on drumming, maybe because they can't understand the songs. But the poetry is central.)

Kinka: Drumming variations and Songs

Afrika Dukplao Lawo (Leaders of Africa) lyrics and audio


Also: please submit preliminary project proposal (use eClass link for Feb 13)

Week 7: 18-Feb and 20-Feb

Reading week!

Week 8: 25-Feb and 27-Feb

Tues: Case study in Northern Nigeria

Presentation by our TA, Gabriel Ojakovo, on his work in Northern Nigeria documenting the way music is used as a recruitment tool by Boko Haram, and how music is used by others to discourage recruitment.

In preparation for class

Read: 'Sonic Jihad': Black popular music and the renegotiation of Muslim identities in Post 9/11., by Katy Khan, Muziki: Journal of Music Research in Africa. 2007, Vol. 4 Issue 2, p200-208.

Watch: Duniya Juyi Juyi. This film is a PAR experiment produced by Hannah Hoechner. It was acted by "The Almajiri" - disadvantaged Islamic students who are vulnerable to Boko Haram recruitment.

Submit on eClass: one paragraph reflection on the power (and limitations) of the arts (music, dance, drama, film...) to promote or subvert political ideologies.

In class

Preliminary announcements

  • Thursday: we have a special guest Dr. Tanya Kalmanovitch (professor at the New School in NYC), scholar, activist, and musician extraordinaire, to talk about music and environmental issues and her research-creation project, Tar Sands Songbook, and also to lead an improvisation session. Please bring your instruments for Thurs!
  • Proposals, and how to conceive them by answering a few questions:
    • AIM and SIGNIFICANCE: What is the "Big Problem" (an issue resulting from System colonization of Lifeworld) you seek to address? E.g.: poverty, displacement, racism, sexism, Islamophobia...whatever the problem it ultimately entails dehumanization, and this is--finally--what needs addressing. (If all human relations were humanized there wouldn't be any Big Problems!) The definition can be broad at this stage, because your PAR network will work towards sharpening the definition, as well as towards a solution (rehumanization, directly or indirectly, through research, project planning, implementation and assessment). PAR supports your work both pragmatically (through guidance and sustainability) and ethically (by ensuring the humanization of research relationships).
    • Provide any necessary BACKGROUND information on the problem, its scope, the Edmonton context, etc. by citing literature (e.g. issues of poverty, broken families, refugees, etc.) Mainly cite scholarly secondary sources (primary sources can also be used as "data"). Don't cite encyclopedias (but do use them to find sources). See http://bit.ly/emresearch for suggestions on library databases and other resources.
    • METHOD:
      • 1: Who is included in your PAR network, at least initially? How do they connect with one another? What are the various roles?
      • 2: What is your initial approach to addressing the Big Problem? This approach will be refined through PAR, but just as you need to have an initial idea of the PAR network, so you need an initial approach towards the solution.
      • 3: Consider what is required for planning, acting (implementation), observing (assessment), and reflecting? How will you go about conducting each of these phases?
      • 4: How can you make your solution sustainable? Two possible strategies: (a) a "module": a non-human product that can endure on its own, such as a website, CD, booklet, etc. (e.g. Kinka), or (b) cultural continuity - oral transmission (e.g. Singing and Dancing for Health).
    • DESCRIPTION of the process (what you managed to complete during this short period of work)
    • ASSESSMENT - what did accomplish? what did you learn? (reflection)
    • FUTURE DIRECTIONS (what you'd like to do next, if you could...) (more reflection)
    • APPENDIX: MODULE (could be a website, ppt, booklet...something you'll leave for your group to keep your activity going)
  • Producer of film, Hannah Hoechner wrote a book entitled Quranic schools in Northern Nigeria, available online.

Gabriel's talk/discussion

Sonic Jihad

Thurs: special guest Dr. Tanya Kalmanovitch

(see above)


Week 9: 3-March and 5-March

Tuesday

Theatre for Development

In preparation for class

Read "Must the Show Go on? The Case for Theatre For Development", by Tim Prentki Source: Development in Practice, Vol. 8, No. 4 (Nov., 1998), pp. 419-429 URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4028911 (If this link doesn't work from off-campus visit http://jstor.org.login.ezproxy.library.ualberta.ca and search for the article.)

Also watch these short project videos:

Write a 2 paragraph review (summary/critique) about theatre for development, with some creative extensions added: What is theatre for development (TFD)? What are its theoretical sources? What are its strengths, its limitations? How does TFD relate to music, dance, games, and other expressive activities and products, when applied to development? In your opinion, how can music enhance TFD (while the videos include music, the article doesn't talk much about it; please feel free to share your new ideas)? Apply TFD to your planned CSL project (optionally you may wish to incorporate these ideas in your proposal). Submit on eClass.

Thursday

Musical interaction/improvisation. Come to class with an idea/sketch for a flexible, interactive musical performance/improvisation of any kind - feel free to combine music (in the narrow sense) with other expressive arts (theatre, dance, poetry, literature, comedy, games, acrobatics...fashion), since our M4GHD "music" knows no boundaries. Make it as avant-garde or conservative/traditional as you wish. Just ensure that you enable (a) full participation, (b) some measure of flexibility, (c) feedback - people can respond to what others are doing.

Need some ideas? Here are a few I came up with years ago - some have been performed since, and others have not. Feel free to use and combine with your own.

Submit your own improvisation idea on eclass and come prepared to lead it. (Bring your instruments...or use body music - voice, and other body sounds)

Week 10: 10-Mar & 12-Mar

Tues: Lomax, Interlock, and idealized "Pygmy" singing

Prior to class

READ:

  • Song Structure and Social Structure, Alan Lomax, Ethnology, Vol. 1, No. 4 (Oct., 1962). Read from page 425 to page 431 (to "Musical Acculturation") carefully, skimming the three pages of coding sheet information, and from page 435 (from "Pygmy-Bushman versus Western European Song Style") to 442 (up to "The Bardic Style of the Orient") (about 10 pages total); skim the rest. Alan Lomax was one of ethnomusicology's founding figures, a great collector, humanist, folksinger, and also a social scientist, both "pure" and "applied": seeking the patterning between music and culture, and determined to uphold human diversity.
  • Excerpt of Colin Turnbull’s book, The Forest People, skim first few pages, then read pp. 11-26 (15 pages). Colin Turnbull was a famous anthropologist who romanticized the "Forest People" as he called them. His book "The Forest People" is a truly beautiful ethnographic portrait. Yet there is bias also: his representation of their world can also be critiqued once one understands the larger context, including his own life. How does he over-romanticize?
  • Excerpt from Turnbull Biography - In the Arms of Africa: The Life of Colin M. Turnbull, By Roy Richard Grinker: (5 pages) and its NYT book review. (3 pages)

BROWSE:

LISTEN: Music Of The Rain Forest Pygmies: The Historic Recordings Made By Colin M. Turnbull. (browse tracks, and read the first page of the liner notes. If the link doesn't work, visit Alexander Street Press and search for the title. Note how many of the songs feature interlock.

WATCH


WRITE: Turnbull, Lomax, and the films, idealize and romanticize the "pygmies" to varying degrees. Why do they admire the "Pygmies"? How, in their view, is the "Pygmy" social "utopia" expressed through music? How are they positioned within Cantometrics? Critique: Does cantometrics capture the essence of their music or not? Identify stereotypes (including the generalized concept of "Pygmy") and think critically about the romantic ideal of simple, egalitarian life which some of the writings and films uphold. Can Cantometrics be inverted (used to induce rather than reflect social organization)? To what extent, in your view, could "Pygmy music" be used via PAR to generate an egalitarian utopia? How does your critique temper your expectations? Write 1-2 paragraphs and submit on eClass.

In class

Listening to music of Africa's rainforests: Ba Mbuti and Ba Benzélé via the Global Jukebox, examining the Cantometrics profiles.

Source and Reference; Critique; World Music

  • SOURCE vs. REFERENCE
    • Reference: containing truth statements about the world
    • Source: containing statements which may not be true, but that will teach us something when placed into context
    • That context is typically implicit; the critique makes the implicit explicit.
    • 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. We turn SOURCE into REFERENCE through the process of CRITIQUE:
      • Making assumptions explicit.
      • Adding enough qualifying, conditioning, contextual information to make sense of it.
      • That which is untrue in general may be true in relation to a context.
      • The goal of critique is to excavate that context: the author's life and times, and society, for instance.
  • We urgently need a CRITICAL PERSPECTIVE on the whole phenomenon of "WORLD MUSIC"! Many statements about world music are designed to SELL. We find statements that World Music is...
    • Exotic
    • Primitive
    • Percussive
    • Organic
    • Natural
    • Mysterious
    • Mystical
    • etc.
  • But the same critical attitude is required to evaluate works of anthropology and ethnomusicology, whether WRITTEN, AUDIO, or VIDEO products....they are all CONSTRUCTIONS of (a) particular person(s) operating in a particular socio-cultural environment, which is encoded in the product, explicitly or implicitly

Cantometrics

The value of concepts of "Pygmies" and "Pygmy music": Humanistic, Scientific, Critical, and Action Views

  • Humanistic view: Rescuing culture - a humanistically valuable way of life is threatened and disappearing.
  • Scientific view: Cantometrics makes two claims
    • First: The INTERLOCK style is related to certain styles of social organization: interdependent, often non-hierarchical and egalitarian, cooperative, non-differentiated, sociocentric
    • Second: The INTERLOCK style along with these forms of social organization are very OLD: and song data can support genetic data pointing to connections among diverse populations, especially "Pygmy" (themselves linguistically and ethnically diverse) and "Bushmen" despite the absence of contemporary social or linguistic connections. Does it represent an older "indigenous" layer?
  • Critical view: sharpening our critical senses - unmasking oppressions - system exploitation of formerly homeostatic lifeworld and well-woven social fabric
    • But is the "salvage ethnomusicology" attitude, motivating preservation of something rare, ancient, etc., excessively romantic? Does it reflect humanistic value (of the music) or humanizing respect (for the people)?
    • And how to "preserve" something living in ecological relation to an environment that is disappearing?
    • Consider the differences between films of the 70s and 2000s (both what is represented (less utopian), and how it is represented (more humanistically and realistically)).
    • Oppressions in naming and categorization
      • Word "pygmy" is not indigenous ("exonym"), often considered pejorative; applied by outsiders across different ethnolinguistic groups, though it can stand as a unifier against oppression, as in the African Congress of the Pygmies (cf Berbers, Gypsies, First Nations, etc.)
      • The word "pygmy" actually covers many different ethnolinguistic groups with different traditions (as does "Bushmen" or San)
      • "Pygmy" in fact includes: Bambenga, Babenzele, Bambuti, Baka, Batwa... (prefix "Ba" means "People")
      • Map of various regions. Harvard's Africa map, Ituri province, Ituri forest
      • These are indigenous populations of central Africa; forest dwelling hunter-gatherers, with fluid relation to the sacred land, formerly interdependent mainly with local Bantu farmers; historically little relation with each other.
    • Sociopolitical, economic, cultural oppression
      • Marginalized groups with very little power, even in their own marginalized nation states (Congo, Central African Republic…
      • Indigeneity, indigenous knowledge / culture, threatened with loss
      • Today their languages are largely lost. (French is common, along with Bantu languages)
      • Atrocities: discrimination, exploitation, environmental destruction, slavery, cultural destruction... violence...even genocide (in Congo, Rwanda...)
      • "Pygmies" themselves are nearly always disempowered, rarely educated, their voices ignored or silenced - dehumanized, treated as animals (in 1906, Ota Benga, a Congolese Pygmy taken to the USA as a slave, was displayed in a cage at the Bronx Zoo; he later committed suicide)
      • Mobile relation to land renders them even more powerless than other indigenes before transnational corporations that seek to exploit the forest or build pipelines.
      • This is especially true when their lands are found to be valuable (logging, pipelines, mineral extraction...)
      • Their lifeworld galvanized into action, in part via music
      • Singing provides an intergenerational expression of opposition to the destruction of their lifeways.
      • Use of music to oppose an Exxon pipeline is reminiscent of contemporary Wet’suwet’en struggles in BC; M4GHD includes a song Land Back by A Tribe Called Red.
    • More subtly: violence of even well-intended representations. The discourse of “pygmies” in academia and art alike:
      • Stereotyping and racism: Pygmies as exotic, semi-human, primitive, “ancient peoples”, even if this view is blended with admiration
      • Anthropological interest in indigenous forest people: Romanticization (Rousseau to Turnbull).
      • Hunting and gathering is undoubtedly in our past and yet a specific hunting-gathering culture of the present may not directly link to that past (i.e. against the "contemporary ancestor" theory)
      • Homeostasis? Romanticization ignores system disruptions (interactions with others, globalization, Christianity)
    • Discourses appear in FILM: we must critique films (source/reference).
      • Easier to view as SOURCE by looking into the past - 1970s documentary films.
      • Representations of "the other" - even when idealized and romanticized can often fall into stereotypes and ethnocentric generalizations.
      • Advocacy: Recognition: UNESCO's list of Intangible Cultural Heritage. But again: what does this do for the living culture?
    • Cultural appropriation? (what constitutes appropriation? charges are intensified by: profit seeking; crass stereotyping and ridicule; exploitation of marginalized peoples; use of any spiritual or sacred traditions)
    • Critiquing (source -> reference) such representations and their surrounding discourses are valuable as a means of honing our critical skills
  • Action view: The value of interlock (hocketing) as a force for positive social change, i.e. as M4GHD
    • Scientific value: points to historic connections between populations; sheds light on relationship between sound and social structure, perhaps structures we'd like to encourage in today's colonized world.
    • Humanistic and social value: interlocked vocals expresses social structure - can it perhaps also reinforce or even create social structure?
    • If according to Cantometrics "interlock" expresses certain social structures (acephalous, egalitarian, etc.) can we invert this relationship and use "interlock" to CREATE such utopian social relations?
    • Fulfills main criteria for M4GHD:
      • Inclusive - participation. Musically and emotionally powerful. Vocal music is more immediate, intimate - requires no equipment, inserts no intermediary: the VOICE
      • Everyone is deeply engaged with one another - feedback
      • Improvisation - flexibility
    • Is it possible to harness these musical techniques for M4GHD? On Thursday we'll find out!

Thursday: composing interlocking M4GHD music

Assignment: Use "Pygmy" music as the inspirational basis for a model composition: your own interlocking vocal piece for voices and body percussion.

Suggestions:

  • Review all the audio examples from last class (links are above), whether from record albums, films, or Cantometrics, including:
  • You may like to select a few (or even just one) song recording to use as model/inspiration.
  • Pick something you like!
  • You don't have to emulate these pieces exactly - or, you can!
  • Use body music only: voice, clap, snap, stamp...
  • Use repetitive lyrics or vocables (non-linguistic sounds such as "da da da")
  • Consider defining roles: different ways people can participate in your piece
  • While some roles may be harder to perform than others, try to make the piece inclusive as a whole, so that everyone can participate, in one role or another
  • Develop easy-to-remember "cells" of musical material that participants can sing in a sequence, and flexible rules providing guidance for how to navigate among them (for instance you could say: sing any of these cells! or you could restrict it: from cell A you can move to B or C but not D. From C you can move to D or E...etc.)
  • Feel free to explore any tonality or rhythmic material whatsoever - as you like.
  • Keep it simple!
  • Have a look at/listen to my own attempts...
  • You don't have to notate anything. Or you can! But do submit at least a description of your piece, on eClass...

Week 11: 17-Mar & 19-Mar

Tuesday: Project and preliminary report presentations

Note: as per University of Alberta policy we will no longer be meeting face to face in the classroom. All meetings will be virtual. Today we will experiment with two modalities: Google Meet (link is here and on eClass as well as on your Google Calendars), and eClass Live (link is on eClass). Please be online by 2 pm. We'll try Google Meet first; if it's not working well we'll try eClass Live.

Be prepared to present and discuss your project, structured as required in the syllabus (aim/significance/background/methods/progress to date/impact assessment plan/module); your colleagues will provide feedback. Your extended project proposal/report draft is due next Tuesday (Week 12). I will provide feedback on that by the following weekend, in time for your Google Slides presentations, which will happen in Weeks 13 and 14. These will then form the basis for your final papers.

Note that you will each provide feedback on everyone else's proposals via Google Forms. The link is on eClass and here. We'll do this again for the final presentations. In this way you'll have plenty of feedback from classmates as well as from me.

We will also try to begin a final musical unit: Hindustani music as taught by the celebrated musician Ravi Shankar (if not today then we'll begin on Thursday), introducing basic tonal and modal concepts of raga and tala. Note that in this course I'm giving you short introductions to the musics of our three world music ensembles - MENAME (Middle Eastern and North African Music Ensemble), WAME (West African Music Ensemble), and IME (Indian Music Ensemble): MENAME rhythmic cycles (durub) and modes (maqamat), WAME polymelorhythmic drumming, singing, and dancing (Kinka), and IME rhythms and modes! If you'd like to learn more about any of these vast reservoirs of musical knowledge and practice you might consider taking one of those ensembles next year!

Thursday: Dehumanization, Rehumanization, and Social Networks

See reading and writing assignment on eClass, on dehumanization in war, and rehumanization through music, with attention to social and actor networks. We will discuss the reading in class, and think about how you can conceptualize your own work in a similar manner. We will also continue with Hindustani music.

Week 12: 24-Mar & 26-Mar

Tuesday: project proposals, and Hindustani music

Revise your project proposals, extended towards the final report format. See syllabus for format (though some of the later sections may be sketchy or absent at this point), and eClass for submission. This document will provide the basis for your presentations next week, and the final papers after that.

Begin the Indian Hindustani music unit:

  • First watch this introductory video, Raga: a personal introduction by Ravi Shankar. He has a beautiful way of explaining complex concepts (raga, alap) very simply. (for fun you might like to watch him teaching sitar to George Harrison in 1968!)
  • Then listen to tape 1 side A (a table of contents is here), performing all the exercises along with the group while listening.
  • Next, using your phone or any device, record yourself solo, while performing the following exercises from that tape:
    • Singing the two that-s (scales), bilaval and kalyan, up and down, using the Indian solfege swara (note) syllables (sa-re-ga-ma-pa-dha-ni-sa) and clapping in 5 rhythmic patterns, exactly as in the recording (from 10:15 - 11:50, and then 13:45 - 15:20)
    • Saying the two tala-s, rhythmic cycles, verbalized using their theka-s (syllables): tintal (16 matra-s or beats) and jhaptal (10 matra-s). Note the fascinating concept of khali, which has no real equivalent in Western music.
    • Upload your recording to eClass (I just want to see how you did, in part to know how to approach this material. I'm not going to hold you to high musical standards!)

In class: here's the spreadsheet I presented, with a number of useful video links..., in case you want to review.

AGAIN...please try to use our workshop materials in your projects. This doesn't necessarily mean adding African, Arab, or Indian music, or adding theatre, or experimental music, or anything in particular....it just means widening your musical horizons, by letting yourself be inspired by musical sounds, concepts, and interactions that may be new for you.

Thursday: multi/inter/transculturalism & M4GHD

Preparation for class:

  1. In brief: What are multiculturalism, interculturalism, and transculturalism? How do they differ? How do authors' perspectives differ and why? (refer to readings: Cornwell & Stoddard, Taylor, and Cuccioletta) What is your own opinion regarding the relative social value of multiculturalism, interculturalism, and transculturalism, in Canada, or in any socially diverse society characterized by immigration? What are the pros/cons of each towards promoting cultural continuity, social integration, and social justice, and why?
  2. How can music (generally) and M4GHD (as applied ethno research) help advance and support each of them, in theory or in practice, generally or in Edmonton specifically (provide an example from your own project), and thereby also support cultural continuity, social integration, and social justice?
  • Listening and singing in Hindustani music: listen to tape 1 side B, performing all the exercises along with the group while listening. We won't have time to finish the series but if you're interested I encourage you to do so on your own. It will provide you with a strong basis for further study in Hindustani music, as well as contribute to your musical self-development.

In class:

  • Discussion of the readings. What are they about? What did you think of them?
  • Discussion of multiculturalism, interculturalism, and transculturalism - their differences, value, and relation to M4GHD, especially as applied to Canadian society and culture.
  • Key questions:
    • Vision: what does the ideal Canadian society look like? What are the goals? (humanization? human rights? social justice?)
    • Strategy: How is difference to be respected and maintained without compromising the goals?
    • How are multiple identities and cultures to be connected?
    • How does (should) it evolve when newcomers arrive? What ought to change, and what ought to stay the same?
    • How should its social fabric be woven, ensuring both continuity (intergenerationally) and cohesion (interculturally)?
    • What Canadian values will remain, and what may change?
    • How can music (M4GHD) facilitate the weaving process, and the integration of newcomers (whether immigrants or refugees) to Canada? Socially? Culturally?
    • How to decolonize the process? Who should be involved in M4GHD? Who has the right to participate, and how does "identity politics" figure in? What is the value of PAR here?
  • Introduction to the Edmonton Transcultural Orchestra, representing and facilitating an idealized society.

Please also raise any questions pertaining to the next two weeks of presentations or final assignments. We should formalize the presentation order today. Remember that presentations need to be concise - cover all the points in about 10 minutes maximum, to allow time for up to five presentations per day, plus questions (figuring a total of 15 min (=10 min presentation + 5 min questions) per person, plus a minute for transitions).

Week 13: 31-Mar & 2-Apr

Student presentations (10-12 minutes each). Please submit your presentation via eClass by 31 March 2pm.

Week 14: 7-Apr (last class)

Student presentations (10-12 minutes each).

Note: April 7 is our last class; there is no class on April 9.

Week 15

No class. Final reports due Friday, 17-Apr, end of day. Submit via eClass.

Have a great summer!!