The purpose of this assignment is to provide a sonic, historical, and social analysis of a musical example that connects to your own life experience – “Auto-ethnomusicology” means a study of one’s own musical and cultural ancestry. This written assignment gives you an opportunity to explore your own musical heritage by researching your cultural/ethnic/religious/geographical/chosen background and analyzing the music that is part of this ancestry using the terms and concepts we studied in this course.
This assignment will consist of: 1) a title, 2). a written portion (750-1000 words; more than 1500 words, not including bibliography, will be penalized), 3) a YouTube link to a representative musical example of the highlighted music culture that will be the subject of your analysis, and 4) a properly formatted bibliography. The YouTube link does not need to be a proper video with moving images; if the sound is clear, that is fine. In addition to the YouTube link, within the body of your work, you must make reference to: A) Tim Rice’s “Ethnomusicology: A Very Short Introduction”, 2) (at least) one other course reading of your choice, and 3) (at least) two other academic sources of your choice (not course material).
Critical to this assignment is to make use of terms and concepts we have explored in this class. To do so, refer to the lecture notes and test study guides to discuss as many terms as you wish – be sure to use them appropriately and with clear intention.
If you come from a musical culture that we have covered in class, please do a deeper dive on the subject by either picking different music than what was played in class or providing details that were not covered thoroughly. Overly repeating content from the course will be penalized.
This assignment can incorporate interviews with family members in addition to your own research, if such a thing will strengthen your analysis. These would need to be appropriately cited in your reference list.
TIm Rice’s book, and many of our course materials, may offer inspiration towards generating a framework for your discussion paper. Additionally, this sample format may be helpful:
Introduction: give a brief overview of yourself and your ancestral culture(s).
Give a basic overview of one style/genre of music that you associate with this musical culture(s). Unpack its history, explain when and where it would be performed, discuss how it has changed (or not) over the generations.
Pick a specific piece that you feel represents this musical culture and do an analysis of this song – add a YouTube link in the heading of your paper. Your analysis of the piece should consist of:
An explanation of the function of the piece – where and why was/is it played? Is it folk or art music? What is the relationship between the musicians and the listeners?
What is the history of this piece? Is it traditional, with no known composer? Is it an original composition?
What instruments are involved? How would you describe the sound of the instruments? What roles do they play in the music? How are they constructed? What is their cultural/geographical/historical significance?
What kinds of musical textures and forms are used in this example? Polyphony, polyrhythms, call and response, cyclical forms, improvisation, composition, instrumental, vocal? Look through all the terms we have covered and connect your selected example to relevant concepts.
Conclusion: Describe what this music means to you. How do you relate to it? What thoughts/memories does it bring up for you? What role does music like this play in your life? How does this music compare to the music that you normally listen to? Are there similarities? What are the differences? Has anything in this course made you think differently about it, or think about the sounds in a new way?
Bibliography, discography, and/or filmography in APA or MLA format. You must include a reference list including (at minimum): 1) Tim Rice’s “Introduction to Ethnomusicology,” 2) another course reading (of your choice), 3) at least two (2) academic sources (not course material), 4) an active YouTube link – with appropriately formatted citations. More sources are welcome. Filmography is only relevant if you discuss video content; if you do not refer to the visuals in your YouTube example – as in you just analyze the audio – then this goes under discography.
Research Criteria: You are to access sources through the library to support your descriptions and arguments. The Grove Music Online service is a good resource for researching instruments and musical styles. Please consult a librarian for assistance in finding proper scholarly sources.
Evaluation criteria: Quality of writing, demonstrated comprehension of issues, use of terms and concepts from the course materials, coherence and flow of ideas, and ability to think critically about the listening example. The rubric that will be used to evaluate your work is attached below.
The secret to a good grade on this assignment: Before submitting the final product, ask yourself: does this work clearly demonstrate that I took this course? In other words, have you used terms, concepts, and examples from the readings and lectures to make your argument?
*Format-wise: your submission should be completed in 12-point Times New Roman type font, double-spaced, 1-inch margins. Upload your submission as a Microsoft Word file with a .doc, or .docx extension. You are expected to pay close attention to your writing style: edit for conciseness and precision (avoid typos, unnecessary passive voices, ambiguous pronouns, expletives, redundant adjectives and adverbs, run-on sentences, and other common stylistic mishaps).