This course presents selected musical traditions from around the world. We will explore how these musical traditions shape and are shaped by the cultural frameworks in which they are performed and listen. We will analyze and compare how forms of listening to music, theoretical systems, and different performance practices reflect different cultural perspectives.

The course is organized around to a series of cases studies from around the world, including music from the African Diaspora, Music in the Islamic world, and music in various Roma communities. Through musical examples from these cases we will discuss the role of music in everyday life, the relationship between music and politics, music social class, gender, and ethnicity and how music is involved in issues of social identity and exclusion.