MUS 320 Topics in World Music

Final Project

The idea behind this project is to intimately get to know at least one topic/piece of music that either has a focus on rhythm, or on music cognition, and present it to the class.

This can involve learning to perform the music in some way (if that is practical), or it can involve careful listening and analysis, or it can involve research into the topic via scholarly articles and/or books. You will then give a brief presentation to the class, lasting approximately 15 minutes, in which you either perform and/or play recorded examples and explain what you have learned about the source material.

To this end, you can either listen to a wide variety of music described in the class and choose something that interests you, or you can develop some of the ideas you investigated in your paper and make a presentation out of it. Either way, you should include musical examples you can play for us (recordings are OK).

NOTE: Most of the world's folklore is not written down (these are oral traditions), so any notation you find is likely done by a musicologist and not necessarily by the practicioners of the music. Of course, it is still of value to us to help us understand what is going on in the music.