MA in Music: Pathway in Ethnomusicology
ICMuS has a strong focus in teaching Ethnomusicology and in researching novel approaches to the subject area. ICMuS scholars believe that situating ethnomusicological methodologies and practices within wider interdisciplinary contexts is a fundamental step in the advancement of contemporary Ethnomusicology. Staff at ICMuS have specialisms in: African musical diasporas; Caribbean music; Celtic music and Celtisism; English folk music and song; Fieldwork and field recordings archiviation; Indian music; Irish folk music; Jazz and/as world music; Local and global popular musics; Mediterranean musics; Music and identity; Music social history; Neapolitan Song; North American folk music and song; Political song; World Music.
In this pathway (see the table below), you will take: the core module Advanced Studies in Ethnomusicology, the usual Research Training, and the Dissertation; you will also choose two elective modules that deal specifically with recent methodological developments in the field, or in related subject areas. Specifically, you will be able to choose either two modules in group A, or one module in group A and one module in group B).
Modules on this pathway
- The core module for this pathway is Advanced Studies in Ethnomusicology, in which you will consider some recent works and debates in the discipline and will evaluate critically the most relevant ethnomusicological issues, methodologies and practices.
- Elective modules on this pathway include: Debates in the Philosophy and Theory of Music ; Folk Music and Ballad Studies in the English Speaking World; Globalisation and the Popular: Contemporary Urban Styles; Indian Music; Mediterranean Musics; Music of the Southern States; Ritual, Remembrance and Recorded Sound; Studying Popular Music.
- Your Dissertation will be on a topic related to recent works and/or discussions in the discipline.
Some facts about the teaching of Ethnomusicology at ICMuS
- In our research, we are interested to establish inter- and cross-disciplinary links between ethnomusicological theories and practices and other musicological approaches.
- We host the complete digital archive of Alan Lomax’s field recordings - over 17,400 digital audio files, beginning with Lomax’s first recordings onto (newly invented) tape in 1946.
- We host an international seminar series, at which specialists from all over the UK and beyond visit ICMuS and talk about their work.
- In recent years, Philip V. Bohlman has been visiting professor at ICMuS.
Staff teaching and researching in this area
ICMuS ethnomuscologists:
- Nanette De Jong (ethnomusicology; the African diaspora; Salsa; memory; performance) click here for more
- Goffredo Plastino (ethnomusicology; world music/world beat; traditional & popular musics, especially of the Mediterranean) click here for more
- Desi Wilkinson ((Irish and Breton traditional music; North Africam music, performance) click here for more
Other staff:
- Ian Biddle (musics of the Iberian peninsula) click here for more
- David Clarke (music & culture; North Indian music) click here for more
- Richard Elliott (loss, memory, nostalgia and revolution in popular music, music in Portugal) click here for more
- Dr Vic Gammon (British and North American vernacular musics, history and performance) click here for more
- Bennett Hogg (composition, ethnomusicology, cultural history and theory of technology, psychoanalysis) click here for more