Music 237 - Mapping Musical Worlds

In this intensive seminar, we will gain both technical mastery of the tools of the fieldwork trade—audio recorders, microphones, playback analysis software—and practical expertise in some basic methods of conducting fieldwork for musical research. Over the course of the seminar, students will make recordings in a variety of real-world settings, and we will evaluate these recordings in order to build skills necessary to conduct basic research on contemporary musics. These recordings will require significant initiative, requiring work and travel outside of the seminar. Together, during our weekly meetings, we will read and discuss methodological and theoretical texts to help frame our current or future research projects. The seminar will conclude with students designing a research proposal whose questions and hypotheses can be addressed with the fieldwork techniques mastered during the course. Two class meetings per week.

Requisite: MUSI 111, 112, or consent of the instructor. Limited to 12 students. Fall Semester. Visiting Valentine Professor Garvey.