In this six week world music survey we will explore a diverse range of music and dance cultures from an ethnomusicological perspective. We will learn how cultural identities and values construct and are expressed through music and dance traditions; how this shapes behavior regarding music, such as audience reception and musical transmission; and how music and dance traditions influence broader cultural norms. Students will learn frameworks for music performance and culture analysis and will put these skills to practice each week in class.
While the class will touch on a variety of musical cultures – including Bali, India, Black America, and Japan – the course culminates in a discussion of Irish dance, and challenges students to use their newfound ethnomusicological knowledge to view a familiar tradition with a new lens.

Topics covered: Week 1: Introduction to Ethnomusicology; Week 2: Ethnomusicologists in Training: Music Culture Analysis, Identity, and Fieldwork; Week 3: Sounds of Traditional Music: Classical Music of Bali and India; Week 4: Black Music Matters – Music of Black America and Protest; Week 5: Hybridity as Identity: Japanese Ideas of Music; Week 6: The Development of Irish Dance – Movement and Identity.

6 Zoom sessions: Saturdays, 10:00 – 11:15 am, September 21 – October 26.
Fee: $150
Instructor: Julia Topper  jtopper6@gmail.com