Syllabus for Music 63 - Music of the Peoples of the World

Harvey Mudd College, Spring 2011 Instructor: Bill Alves Mondays/Wednesdays 1:15-2:30 Jacobs B132

This course will cover the fundamentals of music and listening through a survey of traditional, classical, popular, and intercultural music around the world. Among those cultures covered will be those of Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, India, Indonesia, Japan, China, Eastern Europe, and Latin America.

Neither an ability to read music nor any other background in music is required. The first part of this class will be devoted to learning the fundamentals of music. While I understand that students will come from very disparate musical backgrounds, I think that all will benefit from this very generalized perspective of the basic concepts of music. It will give us a foundation of vocabulary and ways of listening to music that will be used for the remainder of the course.

The materials for this course will include the following:

• Music of the Peoples of the World, Second Edition, available at Huntley Bookstore. This required textbook will be main text used for this course.
• Music of the Peoples of the World second edition audio CDs. This set of three CDs is also available at Huntley, but purchase is optional.
• A series of listening lists available for streaming through Sakai (including the above CDs).

Office hours

Course Assignments

Evaluation

Listening quizzes: There will be three short quizzes on the required listening lists. For each listening excerpt you will be asked to identify the country of origin and the title, but, more importantly, discuss the important stylistic characteristics that you hear and apply the principles you have learned from the fundamentals section. Listening quizzes can be made up only when missed because of an excused absence. Examples of reasons for excused absences include illness (with note from student health), family death, and religious holidays. Examples of unexcused absences include clinic trips, travel for sports, visits to grad schools, and airline travel for spring break.

Online quizzes Each section will include some short online quizzes that you will take outside of class time, after having read the corresponding section of the textbook. Quizzes will cover terms, concepts, and listening, in the form of multiple choice questions. Each student will be given a URL, user name, and password in the first week of classes.

Video searches For each region, you will submit by email the URLs of videos from YouTube or similar sites that are examples of types of music discussed in the chapter you have read. You will include the reference to the text as well as a brief description and response.

Concert Attendance In order to give you the opportunity to apply your knowledge to live listening, you will attend at least two concerts of traditional non-Western music during the semester and write short reviews for each. While I encourage you to seek out concerts at all times, fortunately for people without transportation options, there are at least two concerts of non-Western music at Pomona College towards the end of the semester. The review should be one to two pages, stapled to the concert program, and should apply concepts discussed in class to each of the pieces on the concert. It may also include your personal reaction to the pieces. Normally, concerts of popular music, dance with recorded music, or informal concerts without programs are not appropriate for this assignment. If you are in doubt about the appropriateness of a particular concert, please come see me BEFORE you attend the concert.

Hands-on Workshops and Guest Lecturers In order to give you a clearer understanding of some of the music of some of these cultures, I will arrange, when possible, some hands-on workshops to learn the basics of performance in a certain style and culture. I will also try to bring in guest performers to demonstrate and perform on their instruments.

Class Participation This is a class about listening to music. Therefore it is imperative that you listen to the listening lists very carefully and several times. Concentrate while listening and take notes. Only this way can you come to class prepared to discuss these pieces of music. Your regular attendance, participation in discussions, and keeping current with the listening and reading all affect the class participation component of your grade.

Late Assignments are normally penalized one letter grade per class meeting late, but assignments will always receive some credit, no matter how late.

Course outline

Date	Topic	Reading due	Assignment due
Jan. 19	Introduction to the Class
Jan. 24	Music Fundamentals	Chapters 1, 2
Jan. 26	Music Fundamentals	Chapter 3
Jan. 31	Music Fundamentals	Chapters 4, 5
Feb. 2	Music Fundamentals quiz		Quizzes 1 through 6
Feb. 7	The Music of Sub-Saharan Africa	Chapter 6
Feb. 9	The Music of Sub-Saharan Africa		Quizzes 7, 8 (Africa)
Feb. 14	The Music of Sub-Saharan Africa		Africa video search
Feb. 16	The Music of North Africa and the Middle East	Chapter 7
Feb. 21	The Music of North Africa and the Middle East		Quizzes 9, 10 (Mideast) Mideast video search
Feb. 23	The Music of Central Asia	Chapter 8
Feb. 28	Listening quiz 1		Quizzes 11, 12 (Central Asia) Central Asia video search
Mar. 2	The Music of India	Chapter 9
Mar. 7	The Music of India		Quizzes 13, 14 (India)
Mar. 9	The Music of India		India video search
Mar. 14	Spring break
Mar. 16	Spring break
Mar. 21	The Music of China	Chapter 10
Mar. 23	The Music of China		Quizzes 15, 16 (China) China video search
Mar. 28	The Music of Japan	Chapter 11
Mar. 30	The Music of Japan		Quizzes 17, 18 (Japan) Japan video search
Apr. 4	Listening quiz 2
Apr. 6	The Music of Indonesia	Chapter 12
Apr. 11	The Music of Indonesia		Quizzes 19, 20
Apr. 13	The Music of Indonesia		Indonesia video search
Apr. 18	The Music of Eastern Europe	Chapter 13
Apr. 20	The Music of Eastern Europe		Quizzes 21, 22 (Eastern Europe) Eastern Europe video search
Apr. 25	The Music of Latin America	Chapter 15
Apr. 27	Listening quiz 3		Quizzes 23, 24 (Latin America) Latin America video search
May 2, 4	Presentation Days (no classes)
May 10	By 2:00 PM (at the time of the Final) Concert reports due

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