Engaging Khaleeji Musical Heritage: An Introduction to Applied Ethnomusicology

Catalog description

This course investigates contemporary Khaleeji Musical heritage with a focus on Kuwaiti Pearl Diving music between roughly 1900 and the present. With influences spanning from Zanzibar to Bombay to Kuwait and the coastal civilizations in between, this hybrid and cosmopolitan music was born of trade and cultural exchange. As a music of the Indian Ocean civilizations trade, it is also extra-Khaleeji and extra-Arabic. It changed with each pearling and trading season as sailors and divers played music with the locals as they waited for monsoon winds to change direction before sailing home, eager to share the new sounds and instruments upon their return. What happens to this tradition as it is appropriated into the realm of heritage performance as static national-capital? How does this music exist today as a dialogic and fluid expression of the pre-national past? How does cosmopolitanism play with national discourse? In addition to textual responses to these questions, this course will also address their ethical and philosophical questions by creating a virtual Modern Khaleeji ensemble where we will collectively and virtually perform one piece of music. (No musical experience is required for this course)."