GEN1000 for students admitted to Year 1 before AY2025/26, Year 2 before AY2026/27, or Year 3 before AY2027/28, except with the permission of the Module Coordinator
GEN1014
This module introduces the rich diversity of musics—musical traditions and contemporary genres from around the world. Through guided listening, discussion, and analysis, students explore how these musics—their sounds, rhythms, melodies, and structures—are shaped by history, geography, culture, and community life. Using a thematic, week-by-week approach, we examine the central role of music in ethnic communities and its deep connections to identity, social change, and cultural understanding. In the spirit of world music studies, students develop glocal awareness by connecting local musical expressions with global cultural flows and exchanges.
Upon completion of this module, students should be able to:
a. identify and describe the key musical elements as well as the socio-cultural contexts of diverse world musical traditions and contemporary genres
b. explain the socio-cultural contexts of music-making across different regions and communities
c. analyse how music reflects and influences history, identity, and social change locally and globally
d. articulate their personal opinions and viewpoints on musical culture in a rational and responsible manner, as well as understand music and cultural differences around the globe.
1. Introduction
1.1 Introduction to world musics
1.2 Ideas of music-culture
1.3 Basic concepts of ethnomusicology
2. Diverse Musical Genres and Themes in Ethnic Communities
2.1 Traditional African music: art craft and historical preservation
2.2. Afropop: impact on global pop and others; concept of Black diaspora and identity; innovation
2.3. Black Gospel: Africanism, gender, black identity and spirituality, glocalization
2.4. Mexican son and Amazonian culture; cultural preservations, environmental sustainability, eco-tourism
2.5. Samba carnivals, urban samba, bossa nova, capoeira and tango: cultural and sustainable tourism, social inclusion, glocalization
2.6. Eastern Europe musics; tradition vs. modernity, globalization and fusion
2.7. East and Southeast Asian Musics; tradition vs. innovation, gender, cultural fragmentation, tourism and exploitation
2.8. Music of Chinese periphery, Mongolian’s morin khuur playing, xöömii and rock; cultural preservation and diversity, UNESCO’s intangible cultural heritage
1. Class participation (10%)
2. Tests (40%)
3. Individual Project (50%)
