MHMUS 490 — Music and Community

Prerequisite: MHMUS 311. This course uses ethnomusicological frameworks as a way to explore how musical meaning is constructed. Anchored in the importance of one’s “lived experience,” the material discussed emphasizes the relationship between ethnomusicology and jazz and classical music. Topics include: a historical overview of ethnomusicological theory, the influence of fieldwork as a research method, the relationship between musicians and ethnomusicologists, and the intersecting roles of ethnomusicology in jazz, classical, folk, and popular genres. Students will complete projects anchored in ethnomusicological insights that address both music in which they are a participant and musics with which they are less familiar.