World Musics

Catalog description

An overview of the field of ethnomusicology and the types of issues and concerns that have guided the research of world music within that field. A number of selected musical case studies from Asia, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas that illuminate the differences and similarities between Western musics and their counterparts in other parts of the world. Particular interest will be given to the way in which cultural, social, and religious beliefs have informed stylistic, performance practice, and aesthetic development in other parts of the world as a means of reflecting about the same types of connections in Western music.