UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA
MUSIC OF THE WORLD
MUL 2720 (Spring 2009)
Instructor: Scott Warfield

SECTION 1 (Class Nbr: 11013) - Class Meetings: Tu-Th 10:30 am -11:45 pm
Location: Colbourn Hall 207e

This web page and its associated links serves as a communications site for MUL 2720 at the University of Central Florida. Posted here are various information pages, assignments, study guides, and links to useful web sites. Students in MUL 2720 are free to print any of these pages for their own use in the course.

Syllabus - Overview of the course, grading policies, etc.

Schedule - Tentative list of reading & listening assignments

Daily Assignments - A complete list of all specific assignments, class announcements, and other reminders in chronological order

Extra Credit - Instructions for earning Extra Credit in this course

Review Sheets for Nettl, Excursions in World Music

PowerPoint Slides from Class Lectures

For Those without Microsoft PowerPoint installed on your computer, there are at least two free alternatives available for downloading from the web:

Reserve/Supplemental Items

A list of items used in class and now in the UCF Library for use as supplemental materials.

UCF Web Sites

"eCommunity" Home page
This is the home page of UCF's "eCommunity," the web-based group email program that will allow you to communicate with other students and faculty with whom you have particular connections. In this case, you are part of the MUL 2720 eCommunity (as well as any other courses and groups on campus to which you might belong). Follow the directions on the first web page to access and use your account.

Useful Web Sites for World Music

The following are examples of some of the best resources available on the web.

General Resources and Research Tools

The World Factbook
Produced by the CIA and updated annually, this resource provides basic descriptive information for any country of the world.

Music Appreciation Textbook Sites

Listening to Music
The companion web site to the music appreciation textbook used by Warfield in MUL 2010. Use Chapters 1-7 in the "Select a Chapter" window to access general information on terminology.
The Enjoyment of Music
The companion web site to a music appreciation textbook, The Enjoyment of Music, occasionally used in courses like MUL 2010 here at UCF. This web site contains useful information for basic music terminology under "Music Materials."
Masterworks, A Musical Discovery
The companion web site to another music appreciation textbook. Click on any chapter and then use the "Fundamentals" and "Glossary" links on the left of the page to access definitions and other basic information.

General Ethnomusicology and World Music Sites

The Society for Ethnomusicology
Home page of the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM), the leading scholarly society devoted to the study of music in all cultural contexts. This site includes important links to a wide range of ethnomusicological and world music web sites (see under resources) and useful indices to the society-published journal Ethnomusicology (see under publications).
Hornbostel-Sachs (Wikipedia)
A brief description of the Hornbostel-Sachs system of classification of musical instruments.
Hornbostel-Sachs
Another description of the Hornbostel-Sachs system, found in the Virginia Tech Multimedia Music Dictionary.
Virtual Instrument Museum (Wesleyan University)
A searchable web site that includes images, sound files, videos, and other information about a variety of instruments from cultures throughout the world. Although not comprehensive, this site does provide a good introduction to the basic types found in the Hornbostel-Sachs Classification system.

Music of India Web Sites

David and Chandrakantha Courtney's Homepage-Indian Musicians
This website is maintained by David and Chandra Courtney, performers and teachers of Indian music working in the United States. This web site is rich in resources that range from introductory essays on Indian music to illustrations of instruments and even sound files, particularly from Northern India.
THE TABLA SITE
An outstanding website with almost everything one might need to know about the Tabla and rhythm in Indian music. Particularly helpful is the extensive glossary (under "Resources") that contains definitions for hundreds of Indian musical terms
Sound of India
This commercial web site sells instruments and CDs, but also contains resources for Indian music, including many overview articles about Indian music and a detailed section on Ragas with sound files.
Art India Net
A website that covers all of the classical art forms of India, including music, dance, and other visual arts. The three links to music (upper left of the home page) provide basic definitions of the two primary styles and a list of external links to web sites for classical Indian performers.
Ravi Shankar
Official website of perhaps the most famous Indian classical musician ever. Has a good essay introduction to Indian music, as well as many other links, including a list of "disciples" with links to their web pages.
Shubhendra Rao
The website of a sitarist who studied with Ravi Shankar and is considered one of the leading Indian Classical musicians of the present day. Follow the link marked "Audio Clippings" (at the left on his home page) to hear examples of his playing.

Music of the Middle East Web Sites

The Middle Eastern Studies Association (MESA)
The Middle East Studies Association of North America is a non-political scholarly society dedicated to the study of the Middle East, North Africa and the Islamic World in general. They publish the International Journal of Middle East Studies and the MESA Bulletin (indexed at this web site). Both of these publications occasionally include articles on Middle Eastern music. Below are three on-line articles from the Bulletin.
Persian Classican Music
A general introduction to the music of the Middle East, including many links to other useful resources such as an explanation of the Dastgah System.
Egyptian Music: Seven Millennia of Performance
A general introduction to the music of Egypt with a few links to additional information.
"The Noble Qur'an"
A website maintained by the Muslin Students Association at the University of Southern California. This site contains several introductory essays, three parallel English translations of the Qu'ran (Koran), and search engines for locating particular passages.

Music of Indonesia Web Sites

"What is a gamelan?"
An excellent web site with written, visual, and aural examples of gamelans from different areas of Indonesia. Use the "gong" icon at the top left to access another directory page that leads to a wide range of informative web pages.
A World in two cities
An American gamelan, based in St. Paul, MN, whose web site includes sound files, descriptions and photographs of some gamelan instruments.
Gamelan Mitra Kusuma
The web site of an American gamelan based in Washington, DC. These web pages includes general information and some excellent pictures of gamelan instruments.
Gamelan Sekar Jaya
The web site of another American gamelan, this one based in California. The web pages include written excerpts from various sources, and an interactive illustration of a Balinese gamelan that allows you to control and hear the various layers of the ensemble. (This page requires Shockwave, which you may download for free via the link on the gamelan page.)
Venerable Lake of Honey
An interactive "map" of the gamelan. Click the descriptive links below the diagram to see which instruments play which parts. No sound, but useful, nonetheless.
Indonesian Gamelan
An excellent web site maintained by Northern Illinois University. Many photographs and sound files that explain the function of each instrument within the gamelan.
Indonesian Music
A general reference web site with numerous links to external web sites, sound files, and other information on music in Indonesia.
Gamelan Photograph
A single picture of a gamelan in a Paris museum.

Music of Japan Web Sites

Musical Instruments

Yasue Horiuchi's "KOTO" Music Home Page
This web site has detailed information on the history of the Koto and its tunings and performance techniques. A few sound files are also available.
Shakuhachi Flute Resource Page
Among the best of the many commercial Shakuhachi web sites, with many illustrations and much information. Although designed primarily for the sale of these instruments, there are good pages on the history and music of instrument under the TAI HEI SHAKUHACHI CATALOG link in the left window menu.
- "Koto no Koto"
The title of this web page means "koto stuff", and this site includes a wide range of information on the instrument.
"Shammy's Page"
Dispite this web site's very poor translations from Japanese into English, this site has excellent close-up photographs of the Shamisen and its parts, as well as detailed instructions on its tunings.
Rolling Thunder
A web site devoted to the modern Japanese drum ensemble, which also includes pages and links to information on the history of the taiko (a type of Japanese drum). Look especially at the Taiko Resource page for background information on these drums.

Kabuki Theater

The Kabuki Story
An educational web site with essays, illustrations and a glossary of Kabuki terms. Look for "Musical Elements" under "Anatomy of Kabuki."

Bunraku (Japanese Puppet Theater)

A Brief Introduction to the History of Bunraku
A single page essay from The Puppetry Homepage.
The Official page of the Bunraku Kyokai
Another excellent web site. Use the menu at the left to access pages on specific topics, including several on the narrator and shamisen.
The Doll House
Close-up photographs of Bunraku puppets in the Whitman College Museum. Click the numbers at the bottom to view different puppets.

Noh Theater

Background to Noh-Kyogen
A web site the explains the basic principles of Noh theater. Follow the link at the bottom right of the page to the "NEXT" page for illustrations of the musical instruments used in Noh.
Noh Mask List
A commercial site that sells traditional Noh masks. Find information through the menu at the left and photographs of the masks through the links on the page.

Gagaku

Gagaku music
A brief essay on gagaku with a photograph of the ensemble and a few links to addtitional information.

Modern Performers

Kodo
Official web site of "Kodo," the modern Japanese drum ensemble that embodies traditional Japanese values. Enter the site via the "English" link on the first page.

Music of Sub-saharan Africa Web Sites

The African Music Encyclopedia
An extensive site with a directory of links to outside web pages for all the countries of Africa, a directory/encyclopedia of African performers, and a glossary of terms associated with African music, among other basic information.
Baka Homepage
A web site with information on the Baka Pygmies of central Africa. Includes some music files.
The Mbuti of Zaire
A web page that provides general background (not much on music) about one of the central African tribal groups that lives in the rain forests of Congo (formerly Zaire).
Cora Connection
A web site with information on both the Cora (Kora) and West African music in general.
Kora Video
A brief video made in Gambia in 1992 of a Kora being played.
"A Guide to Jembe"
An article by Eric Charry, an American ethnomusicologist who specializes in the music of West Africa, about a drum used by the Mande. (This is an unedited expanded version of an article published in Percussive Notes 34, no. 2 [April 1996]: 66-72.)
"Circles and Time: A Theory of Structural Organization of Rhythm in African Music"
An article by Willie Anku, a music theorist at the University of Ghana, on how African drumming is structured. Portions of this article are quite technical, but the opening paragraphs are useful for defining some of the basic concepts in African drumming. (Published in Music Theory Online 6, No. 1 [January 2000].)
African (Ewe) Drumming
Dancedrummer.com is an outstanding web resource maintained by Kevin O'Sullivan, who studied African drumming in Ghana as Fulbright scholar in 1994-95. Among this site's resources are a "virtual drum museum" that allows you to "play" and hear the various drums in an Ewe drum ensemble, a site on "traditional rhythms" that demonstrates how each drum functions in an ensemble piece, and several other links to pages on the history and culture of the region.
King Sunny Adé
The web page from The African Music Encyclopedia that contains a brief biographical sketch of the best known Juju musician.
Fela Kuti
The web page from The African Music Encyclopedia that contains a brief biographical sketch of one of the most controversial African musicians, once associated with "Highlife" music and later known as the founder of "Afro-beat."

General Sites

updated: 7 January 2009 (sw)