Choose one vocal genre from a single culture to examine in terms of historical development, contemporary contexts, and musical parameters. The following genres are NOT permitted: Western Art Music (i.e. “classical”: Bach, Beethoven, opera, art song, etc.), jazz, and Western popular music (this term refers to all mainstream commercial Western music - punk, rap, blues, reggae, etc. - not just what is called 'pop'), Britain Folk Music (Child’s Ballad,…), Japanese Folk Music, Yodelling. I’ve attached a sample one in the order as an example, please use a different genre than that.
Possible verified genre that you are encouraged to write about:
Akan music of Ghana
Carnatic art music
Bengali Baul folk song
Portuguese fado
Nigerian afrobeat
el son Cubano
joropo music in Venezuela
sea shanties of Newfoundland and Labrador
Hindustani dhrupad
Maori chants of New Zealand
nanguan of Southeastern China and Taiwan
French Canadian folk music
Korean kagok
Taiwanese aboriginal music
Icelandic rímur
sean-nos singing of Ireland
mariachi
flamenco
shan’ ge: folk music in Guangxi, China
South African kwaito
p’ansori of Korea
Tongan lakalaka
Cuban salsa
Filipino kundiman
klezmer in The US
Greek rembetika
puirt-a-beul: Scottish 'mouth music' in Cape Breton
Iranian mosighi_e_asill
North Indian khyāl
Colombian cumbia
If you want to choose a new genre, please tell me what genre are you going to write about first so that I can confirm whether it’s appropriate or not.
Choose one song to examine in depth as a representative of the broader genre. Consider how some of the readings from the course so far might come in to play. Follow these features when analyzing the song:
Group make up: How many people are playing on this piece? How many vocalists can you hear? How many instruments?
Meter: What is the meter of the piece? Does it remain the same throughout the piece? Which instruments, if any, emphasize the meter?
Melody: Does the melody have a noticeable shape (e.g. arched, terraced, wavy, descending)? Is the range between the high and low notes very big?
Texture: What is the general texture of the piece? Does it change at any time? Do particular voices interact with each other, creating other sorts of textures (e.g. two voices performing heterophonically with each other in a piece that is otherwise homophonic).
Ornamentation: Is there ornamentation in the vocals or other instruments? Examples of ornamentation include: glissando (sliding from one tone to another); melisma (changing the pitch while singing the same syllable); vibrato (moving repeatedly slightly above and below a note) and trills (moving back and forth between two notes).
Tempo: What is the tempo of the piece in beats per minute? Does it speed up or slow down, or remain constant throughout?
Volume: At what volume is the piece performed? Is there much change in volume during the piece? Where does this happen?
Timbre: For vocals: are they pinched and thin, or resonant and ringing? Do they sound forced or relaxed? Are they nasal, or raspy or clear? Are the consonants pronounced crisply or are they slurred? For instruments, there are all sorts of adjectives we might use for timbre: airy, piercing, ringing, buzzy, fuzzy, bright, dull, rich, thin, mellow, harsh, warm, cold, pure, complex. Other descriptors come from specific types of instruments, like brassy, reedy, percussive, synthetic and electronic.