 The multinational
television and audio series for EXPLORING THE WORLD OF MUSIC has been conceived and
produced by Pacific Street Films, in association with its co-producer the Educational
Film Center, developer of the telecourse, and ABC-TV Australia, Teleac/NOT (Netherlands),
and Radio Telefis Eireann (Ireland).
EXPLORING THE WORLD OF MUSIC is a new telecourse that will introduce students, as
well as other viewers, to a study of music from a truly international and cross-cultural
perspective. Using the proposition that "all musics are created equal,"
the series explores commonalties and differences in how music is defined, valued,
and utilized in many cultures around the world. By taking an ethnomusicological approach,
EXPLORING THE WORLD OF MUSIC examines music-making within its cultural context, focusing
on how music is created and used to inspire religious feeling, help people work,
enhance games and play, stiiuulate memories and emotions, and create community.
A Music Appreciation Telecourse
In recent decades, the discipline of ethnomusicolo-
gy has made great strides in understanding the music of diverse areas of the world.
Many excellent studies on music and culture have been published. However, most of
this material is written bv specialists for other specialists and very few efforts
have been made to communicate this material to a lay audience. This telecourse consisting
of twelve television programs with accompanying text and CDs - aims to remedy this
deficiency.
Here for the first time is a comprehensive package designed to help the general audience
understand and appreciate music and its importance in all realms of human life. Rather
than using an area studies or period approach, each program, CD, and chapter focuses
on one element of music (such as melody, rhythm, texture, and timbre) or one theme
(such as music and memory or the transfonnative power of music) and explores it from
various cultural and historical perspectives.
A Multicultural Approach
More than a world-music survey, the telecourse looks at both Western and non-Westem
musical tradi-
tions that encompass a range of classical and popular styles. For example, the program
and chapter entitled "Texture" include segments focusing on the music of
Beethoven, steelband music in Trinidad, Irish instrumental dance tunes, vocal polyphony
in Bosnia, and shakuhachi music in Japan.
The question of how human beings create music, implicit in all the programs, leads
to this investigation of the basic technical elements that are used to organize all
musics. While these terms, such as rhythm, melody, and timbre, are Western constructs,
they are used here as a springboard to illustrate different conceptual approaches
to the art of organizing sound and time to make music. The distinctive characteristics
of these elements emerge as musicians and scholars from all over the wor
and discuss their music.
Performers and scholars include Pete Seeger,Paul Robeson, Josh Redman, John Cohen,
Rusted Root, Buddhadev Das Gupta, Mary lo Pagano, Jerry O'Sullivan, Pat Kilbride,
Simon Shaheen, Madou Dembele, Nafisa Sharriff, Mijana Lausevic, Mark Slobin, Theodore
Levin, Tomie Hahn, Stephen Leek, Ernest Brown, and Gage Averill.
Uses in the Curriculum
EXPLORING THE WORLD OF MUSIC will serve faculty and students in many areas of the
undergraduate curriculum. First and foremost, it provides the essential elements
to meet the requirements for both music appreciation courses and general music surveys.
Secondly, it can serve as the curriculum for a world music survey class. Thirdly,
because of its cross cultural and interdisciplinary approach, it will provide an
invaluable instructional resource in fields outside music, including world history,
anthropology, sociology, art history, and ethnic studies.
The visual presentation in twelve half-hour programs provides an innovative contribution
to music education at the college level, dispelling the notion that music is for
ears only. This visual component helps the student to understand musical concepts
through demonstrations and discussions with instrumentalists, vocalists, improvisers,
and composers from many diverse cultures.
By actually viewing musical performances, students get it first hand look at instruments,
playing techniques, interactions between musicians, and entire performence context.
As musicians and scholars explain the meanings surrounding these performances, students
get an in-depth understanding of the music itself, the craft of creating and making
music, and the relationship of music to virtually all aspects of human life. When
used in combination with the audio and written text, the programs provide a vital
dimension to the understanding of musics around the world.
The EXPLORING THE WORLD OF MUSIC Reader/Guide
The new reader and telecourse guide for EXPLORING TFIE WORLD OF MUSIC has been developed
to correlate with and deepen the concepts and themes presented in the television
series for the telecourse. While the programs present performances, interviews, and
archival footage, the chapters in the reader/guide are designed to provide a more
in-depth view of concepts and issues raised in the television programs, as well as
to introduce new material that relates to each topic.
The reader/guide incorporates photographs, maps, notated musical examples, and self-study
review sections, as well as discographies and bibliographies for further reference.
In addition, there are two appendices that give the fundamentals of traditional Western
notation. A faculty manual also is available.
The EXPLORING THE WORLD OF MUSIC reader/guide is the first major text of its kind
to approach world music from a topical rather than an area studies perspective at
a level that is accessible to entry level students of world music. In addition, its
treatment of Western classical music alongside other musical traditions makes it
unique in the field. Although this reader/guide is designed specifically for the
telecourse, it also stands on its own as a general music text. (The reader/guide
and faculty manual are published by Kendall/Hunt Publishing Co.)
The Audio Modules
The audio modules in the form of CDs complement the twelve television programs and
dovetail the reader in order to meet several require course. First, us selected examples,
the audio teaches basic music listening skills. skills are developed by using examples
from different world cultures. Secondly, the audio allows participants to hear complete
performances of selected music, something that occurs rarely in the television programs.
And finally, the audio modules feature a broader sampling of musical examples than
occur in the programs. Each selection of the audio component is keyed and explained
in the accompanying text. Many of the selections are transcribed in traditional or
graphic notation.
Program Descriptions
Program I - Sound, Music, and the Environment
The sounds that are considered music in any given society are both a natural and
a cultural phenomenon, intrinsically related to the environment in which they are
produced. While music exists in every human society, its meaning and function are
culturally deten-nined. Differences in techniques, instruments, languages, and contexts
have yielded a wealth of musical styles. This introductory program considers what
we mean by music and examines the impact of environment on musical production.
Program 2 - The Transformative Power of Music
Music is often an important component of religion, ritual, celebration, work, play,
and politics. It can also help to create and reinforce boundaries of community and
identity, and serves as a means to social expression that gives rise to emotions,
to memories, and to plea-
sures. This program explores the power of music to transform our lives.
Program 3 - Music and Memory
Music provides a dynamic link with the past. It both serves as a record and as a
vehicle through which the past is remembered. Through the performance of music, memories
of heritage and culture are celebrated in ways that relate vitally to the present.
This program examines how music is used to maintain, interpret, and redefine traditions
and rituals of the past.
Program 4 - Transmission: Leaming Music
The study of how a given musical tradition is transmitted involves many characteristics
- how people learn, how they maintain what they have learned, how they modify what
they have learned in performance, how that performance is received by the audience
, and how the tradition is passed on. Tnis program examines both the individual and
collective means of musical transmission.
Program 5 - Rhythm
Rhythm is perhaps the most fundamental aspect of music. It moves through and marks
the passage of time. It is the pattern of durations of notes and silences, regular
or irregular, metric or free flowing. This program looks at the foundation of rhythm,
its many variations, and its special relationship to human movement - to dance.
Proqram 6 - Melody
Melody is the essential musical expression of the human voice. It is a series of
notes or pitches that, when combined, form a kind of whole - what we often think
of as a song or tune. Whether sung or played on instrument melodies are created the
conventions of the cultures from which they are generated. This program examines
the idea of melody and how melodies are characteristically shaped, elaborated, and
developed within different musical systems.
Program 7 - Timbre: The Color of Musk
Across the globe, a rich variety of vocal and instrumental traditions create an astonishing
assortment of sounds. The tone color, or quality of sound of any given instrument
or voice, is influenced by a number of factors: techniques, aesthetics, and materials.
In the Western tradition, tone color is called timbre. 'Ibis program examines the
many ways that tone color is created and used in music around the world.
Program 8 - Texture
Texture in music refers to the number of voices and instruments used in performance,
as well as to the ways in which these parts relate to each other to produce the overall
web of sound. Throughout the world, people have devised fascinating methods of blending
instruments and voices to produce an infinite variety of musical textures. This program
examines texture in relation to structure and aesthetics in different musical traditions.
Program 9 - Harmony
Much of the world's music involves the interaction of two or more tones sounded Western
music theory this interaction - how the pitches relate to each other - is defined
as harmony. If we imagine melody as moving through space and time horizontally, we
can think of harmony as a vertical construction in which we listen to all the sounds
played or sung at the same time. This program traces the history of Western harmony
from the Middle Ages through the present, as well as examines other harmonic systems
found around the world.
Program 10 - Form: The Shape of Music
In order to fully comprehend music, it is necessary to examine its form - the way
it is organized and structured from beginning to end. Included in this is a notion
that a piece of performance has a beginning, an end, and some kind of internal structure
dividing it from mo to moment. Human beings are pattern seeking creatures, and we
want to understand a larger unit as being made up of smaller units. This program
examines how musical forms are used to guide the composer, performer, and listener.
Program 11 - Composers and Improvisers
A composer creating a fixed structure that can be repeated and a musician improvising
within the context of performance are basically engaged in the same process. They
are both creating and shaping musical materials and grammar and at the same time
adding their own individual mark. This program explores techniques and processes
of composition and improvisation and examines the relationship between these two
aspects of musical creation.
Program 12 - Music and Technology
Music and technology have always enjoyed a complementary relationship. The evolution
of musical styles, the building and development of musical instruments, and the transmission
of musical materials have often reflected developments in technology. This program
looks at the myriad means by which technology has been linked to music production
and performance.
Advisory Board
The advisory board for EXPLORING THE WORLD OF MUSIC includes:
Mark Slobin, Past President of the Society for Ethnomusicology, Department of Music,
Wesleyan University; Gage Averill, Department of Music, New York University; Barbara
Hampton, Music Department and Dean, Hunter College; John Cohen, Purchase College,
SUNY; Willie Ruff, Department of Music, Yale University; James Cowdery, past Editor
of the Journal of the Society for Ethnomusicology; Stan Scott, Department of Music,
Clark University; and Stephen Wild, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander Studies.
Dorothea Hast is Director of Content and Writer for the EXPLORING OF MUSIC telecourse
and is editor and co-writer, along with James Cowdery and stan Scott, of the telecourse
reader. She received her Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University and currently
teaches in the Music Department at Southern Connecticut State University.
For more
information please contact the
Educational Film Center,
Steve Rabin,
5101 F Backlick Rd.
Annandale, Virginia, U.S.A.
Tel: 703 750 0560
Fax: 703 750 0566
e-mail: efc.steve@verizon.net
or go to
http://www.learner.org/resources/series105.html |
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