UCLA Department of Ethnomusicology

The purpose of this course is to provide incoming graduate students with the basic skills for research on and about music that will be essential to their careers as ethnomusicologists. Ethnomusicology is primarily--although not exclusively--a word-based discipline about acoustic phenomena and their related social practices. Basic expertise in the nature of sound, its representation, and the multimedia sources available for doing and presenting research on it are essential components of professional training, research, and publication. All ethnomusicologists require a basic understanding of acoustics, the ability to represent sounds in various graphic forms appropriate to them, and the ability locate and organize information sources related to the field of ethnomusicology.  Regardless of the directions of the specific research project of the students, information technology skills, acoustics, and representational tools for non-linguistic acoustic phenomena are essential skills.

The course will meet once a week for three hours. Classes will be devoted to a combination of lecture, demonstration, and practice.  Each section of the course will have its own readings and assignment.  Students have an opportunity to use all of the skills in other courses they will be taking in following quarters, and may follow up on the basics presented in this course by pursuing them in other seminars or on their own.