Difference between revisions of "MofA Week 1: What is “music of the Arab world”?"
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* Ethnomusicology uses broad terms of analysis to describe multiple dimensions or aspects of music, in an attempt to come to grips with an entire world of music... | * Ethnomusicology uses broad terms of analysis to describe multiple dimensions or aspects of music, in an attempt to come to grips with an entire world of music... | ||
| − | * MA = "Arab music" | + | * Let MA = "Arab music" (Arabic: "al-musiqa al-`arabiyya") |
| − | * Does MA exist as a coherent category? | + | * Question for investigation: ''Does MA exist as a coherent category?'' |
| − | * What does the sonic empirical evidence suggest? | + | * Method: empirical study and analysis - What does the sonic empirical evidence suggest? |
| − | * Based on your listening, to what extent can you characterize Arab music according to the following aspects? | + | * Based on your listening (using the foregoing links, or other materials at your disposal), to what extent can you characterize Arab music according to the following musical-social aspects? Please edit each wiki page adding your signed comments for next Tuesday... |
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| + | '''Aspects:''' | ||
[[MA Textual]] (aspects of text, poetry, linguistic meaning) | [[MA Textual]] (aspects of text, poetry, linguistic meaning) | ||
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[[MA Formal]] (aspects of large-scale structure) | [[MA Formal]] (aspects of large-scale structure) | ||
| − | [[MA Emotional]] ( | + | [[MA Emotional]] (the feeling and experience of music, as inferred from behavior) |
| − | [[MA Behavioral]] (social aspects of the performance - audience and performer actions and interactions) | + | [[MA Behavioral]] (the social aspects of the performance - including audience and performer actions and interactions) |
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'''thought questions:''' | '''thought questions:''' | ||
| − | To what degree do these features gather musics of the Arab world? | + | * To what degree do these features gather musics of the Arab world? |
| − | To what degree do these features exclude musics of other worlds? | + | * To what degree do these features exclude musics of other worlds? |
''Is "music of the Arab world" an objectively coherent category?'' What about "Arab music" - can a satisfactory definition be established, independent of discursive use? | ''Is "music of the Arab world" an objectively coherent category?'' What about "Arab music" - can a satisfactory definition be established, independent of discursive use? | ||
Revision as of 11:55, 9 September 2010
Contents
Course introduction
- Welcome
- Course participants
- Course tools: wiki, moodle
- Course approach
- Understanding
- linguistic, declarative knowledge (cognitive)
- Non-linguistic understanding (affective)
- procedural knowledge
- Critiquing
- Understanding
- Ethnomusicology
- Theoretical, conceptual
- Empirical, grounded
- World music, worlds of music
- Area studies
- in general
- in ethnomusicology
- and "Arab"
- Problematizing, critiquing
- "only that which has no history can be defined" (Friedrich Nietzsche (d. 1900), Genealogy of Morals)
- Ethnomusicology of the Arab world?
- What is "ethnomusicology of the Arab world"?
- What is "music of the Arab world"?
- What can ethnomusicology contribute (and to what?)
Problematizing a concept: "Music of the Arab world"
What is music of the Arab world?
Empirical investigations
Listen, watch, and develop some theories...
Ethnomusicology of "Music of the Arab world" and "the World of Music"
Listening examples:
- The Berlin Phonogramm-Archiv 1900-2000
- The music of Egypt
Unity in Music of the Arab world?
Category of "Arab music" - is it coherent? Note that this question can be answered by recourse to discourse (do people use such a category? (Is it "emic"?) If so, what does it mean for them?) or by recourse to sound (can we list a set of attributes which define such a category?)
Let's take the latter approach, considering objective audio-visual data presented in class. What features recur? Try to fill in the following list by editing the following pages, before reviewing my own list below. (Emotional and behavioral features require that you watch the music - via video.)
- Audio examples on CD
- Video examples on DVD
(x4ng)
Ethnomusicology of the Arab world: analysis
- Ethnomusicology uses broad terms of analysis to describe multiple dimensions or aspects of music, in an attempt to come to grips with an entire world of music...
- Let MA = "Arab music" (Arabic: "al-musiqa al-`arabiyya")
- Question for investigation: Does MA exist as a coherent category?
- Method: empirical study and analysis - What does the sonic empirical evidence suggest?
- Based on your listening (using the foregoing links, or other materials at your disposal), to what extent can you characterize Arab music according to the following musical-social aspects? Please edit each wiki page adding your signed comments for next Tuesday...
Aspects:
MA Textual (aspects of text, poetry, linguistic meaning)
MA Timbral (aspects of sound color, instrumentation)
MA Temporal (aspects of rhythm, meter, tempo...)
MA Tonal (aspects of intonation, scale, tonality)
MA Melodic (aspects of modality, melodic patterning, improvisation)
MA Textural (aspects of layering and relationships of multiple parts)
MA Formal (aspects of large-scale structure)
MA Emotional (the feeling and experience of music, as inferred from behavior)
MA Behavioral (the social aspects of the performance - including audience and performer actions and interactions)
thought questions:
- To what degree do these features gather musics of the Arab world?
- To what degree do these features exclude musics of other worlds?
Is "music of the Arab world" an objectively coherent category? What about "Arab music" - can a satisfactory definition be established, independent of discursive use?
Unity of Arab music (my list; don't look until you've thought about the issue yourself!)
Course outline
An overview of what's to come...
