MUS 239 Introduction to World Music

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MUS 239Introduction to World Music

• M, W, F 1000 1050 a.m.
• Ellis Hall Room 226
• Instructor Dr. John Prescott
• Office HHPA 309
• Office Hours T.B.A.
• Phone [phone]
• Email johnprescott_at_missouristate.edu
• Course Web Site www.faculty.missouristate/edu/j/
  jsp304f

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18 January 2006

• Distribution of Syllabus
• Class Overview
• Student/Teacher Course Expectations
• text (next page)

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Text

• Titon, Jeff, ed. Worlds of Music, An Introduction
  to the Music of the World's Peoples. Shorter
  Version/Second edition. Belmont, California
  Schirmer/Thomson Learning, 2005.
• http//www.wadsworth.com/music

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Reading Assignmentfor Week One

• Chapter 1
• What are the four components of a Music-Culture?
• Can you hear and feel the metrical rhythm in the
  pieces you are listening to?
• Chapter 9
• What type of music do YOU want to learn about?

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MUS 239Introduction to World Music

• Chapter 1 The Music-Culture as a World of Music

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What is music?

• Soundscape characteristic sounds of a place
• In general, music is sound that is humanly
  organized.
• Sometimes its not easy to separate sound and
  music.

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Patterns in Music

• Rhythm Meter
• Metrical rhythm rhythm with recurring accent
  pattern
• Melody
• Principal tune made of a succession of tones in
  particular rhythm
• Harmony
• Accompaniment to a melody
• Form
• Structural arrangement of musical ideas

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Harmony Four Kinds

• Monophonic (distinct single melody)
• Homophonic (single melody with accompanying
  harmony)
• Polyphonic (more than one melody)
• Heterophonic (single melody but each instrument
  plays it differently)

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Ways of Looking at Musical Instruments
Classification

• (Sachs-Hornbostel Instrument Classification)
• Idiophone
• Membranophone
• Chordophone
• Aerophone
• (Electrophone)

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Idiophone examples
a percussion instrument, for example a gong or
xylophone, that is made from resonating material
that does not have to be tuned
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Membranophones examples
instruments that make sounds when a stretched
skin (membrane) vibrates
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Chordophone examples
a stringed instrument
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Aerophones examples
A wind instrument noise is made by pushing air
through a tube.
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Lines are not always easy to draw

• There are hybrids such as tambourines or kazoo
  distinctions can be fuzzy
• Greater interest now in insiders words, context,
  style.

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Ways of Looking at the Cultural Elements that
Surround and Give Meaning to Music

• Four Components of a Music Culture
• Ideas about music
• Activities involving music
• Repertories of music
• Material culture of music

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First Ideas About Music

• Music and the Belief System
• Aesthetics of Music
• Contexts for Music
• History of Music

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Second Activities Involving Music

• Basic aspects of social organization
• Status and role
• Other considerations

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Third Repertories of Music

• Definition stock of ready performances
• Style combined elements
• Genres
• Texts
• Composition
• Transmission
• Movement

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Fourth Material Culture of Music

• Material objects that a culture produces, such as
• Musical instruments
• Paintings, documents, art
• Scores, books, sheet music, books
• Impact of mass media

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Worlds of Music, General Comments

• Co-existent musics in most communities
  music-cultures are dynamic rather than static
  rarely dies out world is a fluid,
  interactive, overlapping soundscape
• Changes occur to meet expressive and emotional
  desires
• Ethnocentrism is generally not a positive element
  in the study of world musics

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Discovering and Documenting a World of Music

• Some Organizing Principles
• Family
• Generation Gender
• Leisure
• Religion
• Ethnicity
• Regionalism
• Nationalism
• Commercial Music

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Subject Options

• Chart the music you hear daily (journal,
  recordings, mappings, etc.)
• Examine music in your own background
• Explore music in your community
• Individual musician

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Research, Documentation Reportingsome things
to consider

• Gaining Entry
• Library Internet Research
• Participation and Observation
• Ethics
• Gain permission
• Honesty
• Field Gear
• Interviewing (open questions, not leading)
• Sharing the information (Report)

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Homework

• Project Proposals
• Assignment No. 1
• Online quiz on chapter 1, sent to my email by
  Monday, January 23, 500 PM.
• Your answers to questions 3, 11, 17, on pp.
  29-30, and question 5 on p. 339, due in class
  Friday, January 27.
• Read Chapter 2
• North America/Native America