(Note that this module is a prerequisite for all ethnomusicology modules in following years)

This module offers a study of music as a unique expression of the human condition, looking at music-making cross-culturally from an anthropological perspective and examining the development of ethnomusicology in Europe and North Africa. 

It aims to:

• study the significance of music for human life, showing how musical practices, instruments, theories and values are an integral part of the human condition;
• introduce the history of ideas in ethnomusicology, showing the development of different scholarly traditions in Europe and America;
• highlight the relevance of anthropological theory in ethnomusicology, studying the role of interpretative, behavioural, sociological and linguistic approaches in the field;
• demonstrate how theory intersects with practice, each theoretical position being explained with reference to one world musical tradition, including the gamelan (Java), the atumpan (Ghana), the takht (Egypt) and the session (Ireland).

• differentiate both aurally and conceptually different world musical traditions, on the basis of instruments, techniques and practices;
• explain different ideas and issues in ethnomusicology, with an awareness of their development within Anglophone scholarly traditions;
• understand basic concepts in anthropological theory in ethnomusicology;
• articulate an understanding of the relationship of theory to practice in different world musical traditions.

Teaching on this module takes the form of ten 50-minute lectures, with supporting consultations in office hours as appropriate. Prepared handouts or items available in electronic format on Learning Central form an integral part of the teaching and learning materials. Students spend additional time in private reading and listening as an important element of their independent learning.

Discipline specific skills

The ability to

• pursue independent enquiry;
• demonstrate an understanding of the interrelationship of theoretical and practical aspects in the study of music;
• demonstrate an elementary level of musical, bibliographical and textual literacy.

Generic skills

The ability to

• absorb concepts, build upon them and communicate the resultant synthesis accurately and convincingly in a coherent and communicable form;
• demonstrate initiative and transferable research and analytical skills;
• develop broader cross-cultural awareness;
• demonstrate the ability to carry out effective, self-directed research with the available resources in order to comply with the requirements of summative assessment.

Is it possible to be human without music? Is music a defining characteristic of the human condition, music-making being understood as a unique style of human behaviour. As a lifestyle, music involves distinctive types of social organisation, a humanly-organised sound system associated with specific cultural contexts. In this module, students will study the place of music in human experience from an ethnomusicological perspective, showing how different modes of music-making require different manners of explanation. In particular, they will examine the place of anthropological theory in ethnomusicology, studying geographically the emergence of different academic schools and tracing historically the development of distinctive theoretical positions, each position being studied with reference to one world music tradition.

Blacking, John, How Musical Is Man? (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1973)   

Blum, Stephen, Philip V. Bohlman and Daniel M. Neuman, Ethnomusicology and Modern Music History (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993)        

Bohlman, Philip V. and Bruno Nettl, eds., Comparative Musicology and the Anthropology of Music (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991)

Geertz, Clifford, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973)      

Hood, Mantle, The Ethnomusicologist (New York: McGraw Hill, 1971)

Koskoff, Ellen, ed., Women and Music in Cross-Cultural Perspective (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987)

Langness, L. L., The Study of Culture, 3rd edn (Novato, CA: Chandler & Sharp, 1987)

Merriam, Alan P., The Anthropology of Music (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1964)      

Nettl, Bruno, Theory and Method in Ethnomusicology: Twenty-Nine Issues and Concepts (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1983)

Titon, Jeff Todd, ed., Worlds of Music: An Introduction to the Musics of the World’s Peoples, 2nd edn (Belmont, CA: Schirmer, 2005)     

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