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

Harvey Mudd College, Fall 2021 Instructor: Bill Alves Mondays/Wednesday 1:20-2:35 Shanahan B450

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, Third Edition, available at Huntley Bookstore. This required textbook will be main text used for this course.
• A series of listening lists available for streaming.

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 on a Sakai forum 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.

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: Because this class depends on listening, discussion, and participation in hands-on workshops, your attendance is crucial not just for your own experience but also for everyone else's. Normally, therefore, each unexcused absence after the first two will result in reduction of the final grade -- A will become A-, A- will become B+ and so on. However, under no circumstances should you attend class if you are ill or are showing any symptoms. Such absences are excused, as are any absences that are a result of necessary isolation or quarantine. Other examples of excused absences include family death and religious holidays. It is imperative that you listen to the listening lists very carefully and several times in advance of the classes in which we discuss the music. Concentrate while listening and take notes.

Assigned reading, online quizzes, video searches, and other assignments are due at class time on the date show. Late Assignments are normally penalized one letter grade per class meeting late, but assignments will always receive some credit, no matter how late. Assignments that are late because of illness or isolation will not be penalized.

Course outline

Date	Topic	Reading due	Assignment due
Aug. 30	Introduction to the Class
Sep. 1	Music Fundamentals	Chapters 1, 2
Sep. 6	Labor Day
Sep. 8	Music Fundamentals	Chapter 3
Sep. 13	Music Fundamentals	Chapter 4
Sep. 15	Music Fundamentals	Chapter 5
Sep. 20	The Music of Sub-Saharan Africa	Chapter 6	Quizzes 1 through 6
Sep. 22	Music Fundamentals quiz The Music of Sub-Saharan Africa		Africa video search
Sep. 27	The Music of Sub-Saharan Africa		Quizzes 7, 8 (Africa)
Sep. 29	The Music of the Middle East	Chapter 7	Mideast video search
Oct. 4	The Music of the Middle East		Quizzes 9, 10 (Mideast)
Oct. 6	The Music of Eastern Europe	Chapter 8	Eastern Europe video search
Oct. 11	The Music of Eastern Europe		Quizzes 11, 12 (Eastern Europe)
Oct. 13	Listening quiz 1
Oct. 18	Fall Break
Oct. 20	The Music of Latin America
Oct. 25	The Music of Latin America	Chapter 10	Latin America video search
Oct. 27	The Music of India and South Asia	Chapter 13	Quizzes 13, 14 (Latin America)
Nov. 1	The Music of India and South Asia		India video search
Nov. 3	The Music of India and South Asia		Quizzes 15, 16 (India)
Nov. 8	Listening quiz 2
Nov. 10	The Music of China	Chapter 14	China video search
Nov. 15	The Music of China		Quizzes 17, 18 (China)
Nov. 17	The Music of Japan	Chapter 15	Japan video search
Nov. 22	The Music of Japan		Quizzes 19, 20 (Japan)
Nov. 24	Thanksgiving break
Nov. 29	The Music of Indonesia	Chapter 16	Indonesia video search
Dec. 1	The Music of Indonesia		Quizzes 21, 22 (Indonesia)
Dec. 6	The Music of Indonesia
Dec. 8	Listening quiz 3

Accommodations

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