This assignment encourages you develop critical listening skills, reflect on and respond to some of the musical examples associated with the Bakan text, and consider perspectives and concepts from chapters 1-3.
After completing the course’s initial assignments that focussed on your own understanding of music and experience listening to it, this assignment develops skills in objective analysis, critical thinking, and expression through written presentation.
Choose one musical example from each group and respond to the questions or characteristics assigned to it. To help you make your selection, please first listen to all three tracks listed in each group. In total, you will select and respond to three examples.
Your responses must be original and stated in your own words, but you are welcome to refer the Bakan text when preparing them.
For each of the examples you select, clearly state the group number, playlist number, track number, and track title (e.g., Group 1, PL 1-8: Calluna Vulgaris) before providing
your response to the questions or characteristics.
PL 1-1: Surat Al-Mulk (verses 1-12)
PL 1-8: Calluna Vulgaris
PL 1-9: Blackbird: Song
Question for Group 1: In 2-3 paragraphs, use Bakan’s Five Propositions as a framework for arguing whether or not the example you selected is considered “music.” Please include references to each of the five Propositions in your response.
PL 2-1: Bomba Plak
PL 2-9: Dance
PL 2-35: Kargyraa Moan
Question for Group 2: In 2-3 paragraphs containing no more than four sentences each, explain how the characteristics and broader context of the example you selected reveal
the music’s meaning and contribute to the identity of its creators or performers.
Consider the characteristics of the sounds, instruments, voices, etc. used in the example. The language in which song lyrics are spoken or sung. A genre or combination of genres contained in music. and the culture, society, nation, or nation-state from which the example originated.
PL 1-5: In a Landscape
PL 2-1: Uptight (Everything’s Alright)
PL 3-13: African Jembe Drums of Sierra Leone
Questions for Group 3: Answer the following two characteristic questions about the examples in this group. Your answer for each function
Do not exceed 1 paragraph or 4 sentences.
To support your answer, use the Hornbostel-Sachs classification system (explained in the handout “Introduction to Organology”) and if you are absolutely sure that this is the instrument shown in the diagram. Only enter the specific name of the instrument (e.g. “Electric Bass”). recording.
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