Assignment

Write short paragraphs in response to the following questions, describing sound and cultural context as speci?cally as possible, while using terms from the textbook and class lectures.

Listen to the two versions of Moghulchai Navo on eCommons and describe the differences and similarities in sonic material.

Listen to the two versions of Adolat Tanovari on eCommons and describe the differences and similarities in sonic material.

Bearing in mind material from lecture and from the reading on Central Asia, discuss issues of power, access, and privilege that are involved in Sevara Nazakhan's entry into the international recording scene via the WOMAD festival and Peter Gabriel's Real World Records label.

Discuss the same issue of privilege and access in terms of the music of Umm Kulthum. How did Kulthum enjoy privilege in Egyptian society? In what ways was she marginalized? How is her life story re?ected in the ways that she makes music?

Choose a track from your own personal listening library that has non-Western sounds in it. Try to ?gure out where those sounds come from and look at the documentation for this track. Are the sources of those sounds listed? If not, try to guess using the material that we've listened to in class. Can you tell who had power and privilege when creating, editing, and marketing this music? Who (if anyone) is being erased or marginalized in that process and how?