Topics in Ethnomusicology: Music for Global Human Development

Music for Global Human Development (Music 365)

NOTE: CONTRARY TO WHAT IS IMPLIED ON BEAR TRACKS: there is NO prerequisite for this course other than consent of the instructor, which I will provide to anyone sincerely interested to enroll, and there are NO additional course fees.

This course will focus on Music for Global Human Development (m4ghd) -- the ways music can be used for social progress on a variety of issues (health, education, peace, integration). We will work together on an applied ethnomusicology project in tandem with the Edmonton Mennonite Centre for Newcomers (EMCN), focusing on immigration, refugees, and socio-cultural integration through music. We will combine readings in applied ethnomusicology, ethnomusicology and migration, and critical development studies with project reviews, and a class project in collaboration with EMCN, working with Syrian refugees in Edmonton through music: hearing their stories through music, teaching them music, and engaging through music.

Music for Global Human Development: Participatory Action Research cycles towards a stronger social fabric.

Music is a social technology of tremendous potential for positive social change.

Music for Global Human Development (m4ghd) is an approach to applied ethnomusicology. M4GHD 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. These music-centered projects, often including also related arts (dance, poetry, drama) as well, are ideally twinned with evaluative evidence-based research, gauging project impact through anthropological and sociological study. They are carried out as collaborative partnerships with artists and other experts in each locale.

M4GHD is a project of the Canadian Centre for Ethnomusicology

Music for Global Human Development

For some examples of M4GHD projects, past and present, please see the following:

• Giving Voice to Hope: A music CD produced in collaboration with Liberian refugee musicians then living in Ghana, supporting Liberian refugees while calling global attention to their history and situation.
• Sanitation: A music video produced in collaboration with Liberian musicians in urban Monrovia, raising awareness about sanitation issues, using contemporary sounds (R&B, hiphop).
• Singing and Dancing for Health: A music-dance-theatre project in rural Northern Ghana centered on global health: malaria and sanitation

Generally M4GHD features two streams:

• Songs for Sustainable Peace and Development
• Music for Cultural Continuity and Civil Society

additional examples follow....

Songs for sustainable peace and development

A set of participatory action research projects centered on the use of popular music to disseminate development messages, especially for key development issues in public health, education, religious/ethnic tolerance, and peace. I have been working primarily in collaboration with Liberian refugee musicians in Ghana, and recent returnees to Liberia, helping them articulate and disseminate musical messages of peace and development, producing media with a triple purpose: catalyzing positive social change locally, raising awareness globally, and generating a revenue stream to support their musical communities.

• "Be aware: beware of HIV/AIDS" Ft. Shadow, KB., Lib. Dream and Ampain ($1900), recorded and mixed at Brain Drain Studio, Accra. Sponsored by the University of Alberta Department of Music's President's Fund http://bit.ly/beawarehiv
  
• Sanitation and Safe Water, featuring Shadow, J-Glo, 5YA, Jacob V, and Chiller Coolnanee, based on the earlier audio version "Sanitation", featuring J-cop V, Shadow & Faya. Sponsored by the Rotary Club of Calgary.
  • "Sanitation and Safe Water in Liberia" music video (for Liberian distribution)
  • music video with introductory titles (for global distribution)
  • documentary short, Click here for accompanying documentary. Also on Vimeo[1] All videos were produced in Liberia, with some guidance, financial support (thanks to the Rotary Club of Calgary), and post-production from Canada.
    
• Music for Ebola awareness, prevention and training
• [http://bit.ly/sngdnc4h. Funded by a Killam Cornerstones Grant.
• Giving Voice to Hope: Music of the Buduburam refugee camp - audio CD project
• Popular music in Buduburam - video documentary
• Sustainable Peacebuilding through Popular Music, York University 2010
• Capturing the sound of hope[2]
• The color of hope
• Liberia: Refugees Produce CD of Music With Canadian University (Allafrica)
• Influence of music in foreign conflicts (The Daily Orange, Syracuse University)
• Cultural Dimensions of the UN’s “Responsibility to Protect” Norm, presented at Conflict, Memory, and Reconciliation: Bridging Past, Present, and Future, an international conference sponsored by the School for International Training, January 10-13, 2012 (Kigali, Rwanda)

Music for cultural continuity and civil society

Projects for cultural continuity, supporting Ewe music of Ghana, El Mastaba Centre for Egyptian Folk Music, the Egyptian Centre for Culture and Art, and AMAR (Foundation for Arab Music Archiving and Research), Beirut, including consulting as a member of the Board. Media products are designed to catalyze local social progress, raise global awareness, and generate a revenue stream for local musicians.

• Traditional Ghanaian music culture
  • Collaboration with traditional Ghanaian musicians on Kinka: Traditional songs of Avenorpedo, to sustain and develop traditional music
  • Mobilizing scholarship for talented but underprivileged Ghanaian musicians, such as Kofi Avi, so they can complete a well-rounded education.
• Traditional Egyptian music culture
  • Collaboration with El Mastaba Center for Egyptian Folk Music, Cairo, to preserve, archive, document and develop Egyptian music. We are developing an applied research project to support digitization and metadata tagging for El Mastaba's extensive collections, while simultaneously providing training in these procedures to enable sustainability, with in-kind support through secure offsite storage at the University of Alberta.
  • Collaboration with Egyptian Center for Culture and Art, Cairo: To encourage the diversity, specificity and vibrancy of Egypt's cultural scene. Have provided advisory support.
  • Collaboration with AMAR (Foundation for Arab Music Archiving and Research), Beirut: to preserve and disseminate archival recordings of traditional Arab music from the early 20th century. Member of the Board of Directors.
• World music presentations to local Edmonton schools and daycares (ongoing series of presentations, at the University of Alberta, or onsite)
• Local community outreach through performance U of A Senate to celebrate campus volunteers

Enrollment

CSL: this course will count for the UofA's Community Service Learning program & its associated certificate; you will volunteer 20 hours with Edmonton Mennonite Centre for Newcomers. This time will be counted towards your workload, and will not pose a burden above and beyond what Music 365 typically demands. Rather some of your academic work will instead take the form of volunteer service. These hours will not necessarily be spent on the premises of EMCN; there will be a variety of ways to work with this organization, depending on the project, which will be formulated collectively by the class.

Prerequisite: Bear Tracks lists MUSIC 202 or consent of the department. Do not worry if you've never taken Music 102 - this course has never been offered! Please email me to receive consent.

Fees: Bear Tracks states that additional fees may be assessed for Music 365. There are no additional fees for this course.

Please write Prof. Michael Frishkopf for more information.

(Space is limited ...so please enroll sooner rather than later!)

ps - I suggest that you also enroll in The Middle Eastern and North African Music Ensemble, as the two courses will work very well together.

For more information see http://m4ghd.org