World Music Marking

I have just peer reviewed the week 1 essays from six of my fellow students on the Coursera / Penn University course Listening To World Music.  They were rather a mixed bag.

One essay stood above the others, the student has phrased his/her essay in academic language, the question had been thought about and looked at from two differing angles and it read through as one coherent whole. Another essay was pretty good, asked to comment on positionality and emotion within music the student chose the original song, and then three cover versions of the same to illustrate his point, clever thinking.  The other four were hard going though, at least two seemed to understand only basic English, not one used any basic academic conventions and at least one seemed to be answering a different question.  Or perhaps even a question from a different course.

This is where I feared the Coursera project might begin to fall down.  I am going to be quite happy if the first two students read and score my essay, they have a good grip of what the course entails and understood the questions clearly.  Judging by the standard of the other four essays, I wouldn't want any of them marking my work as they appear to have little or no idea of what is going on. Asking them to give scores based on academic conventions and whether or not the arguments are convincing and nuanced just won't be possible as they do not seem to understand these terms.

Fingers crossed then. I think I have written a decent first essay, not as well argued as my Open University work, but then it is a free course without a recognised qualification so I am not spending the research time on this that I would with the OU. I am the only person I have seen so far who has presented references and a bibliography, the OU have drummed that into me over the last year.

Week one scores will be out tomorrow, I have a very busy weekend next week so I'm unsure if I can manage to whole essay and peer reviewing business.  It may depend on whether next week's questions really pique my interest.

Over in OU world, our collaborative wiki is coming on well, and I have made a start on next month's essay question - "To what extent has tourism transformed the meaning of religious objects?"

University of Pennsylvania

I signed on with the University of Pennsylvania using the new online university service Coursera. The first module I have opted to take is Listening To World Music taught by Professor of Music and ethnomusicologist Dr. Carol Muller.  I had expected these free courses, which cannot count towards any formal qualification, to be fairly simple stuff. I am very pleased to find though that the lectures, while easy to understand, are pitched at a fairly high level.

In the opening lectures, which are all delivered in short video sections, Dr. Muller talked about Arjan Appadurai and his theories of social rupture. I am already slightly familiar with Appadurai from module A151 with The Open University in which his book The Social Life of Things features prominently so the music lecture held some relevant crossover points with the material culture studies I am doing.

Coursera works by delivering video lectures with short quizzes and then writing a weekly essay which will be peer reviewed - your own essay will only be reviewed if you have reviewed someone else's work. I am not sure how well this will work to be honest, you can really only mark something correctly if you really understand the subject and know the answers.

This week's questions (choose one of) are...


Week 1 Questions
1) Appadurai argues that modernity is a form of rupture in everyday life, and that the experience of modernity is now globally present.  Moving places is one such form of rupture.  If you are from a family or community that has made significant moves in the last several decades—from rural to urban areas, from one country or continent to another--ask members of your family/group, if music provided a means to maintaining a connection between past and present places of residence and how it has done so--live performance, recordings, human travel? Has music worked to maintain your language of origin? How else might it have worked as a connective tissue in the move or significant moment of rupture?

2) Steven Feld argues that some ethnomusicologists who have studied traditional music have expressed a certain anxiety about commercial market forces in relation to 'traditional' and 'local' music-cultural practices. Others celebrate the potential for intercultural communication and collaboration that made possible with new forms of musical travel. In what ways do you think processes and forms of mass mediation have changed in the last two decades? How might these changes confirm, challenge, or otherwise problematize the anxiety/celebratory takes on musical change? How might contemporary forms of mass media affect our understanding of 'local' or 'traditional' musical practice? Such newer forms of mass media might include the internet, file-sharing, YouTube, iPods, Tablets, etc.: what others can you think of?

3) Find youtube examples of the three forms of authenticity outlined in this lecture segment, and explain how they are articulated in the clip.  It maybe that there are only one or two of these authenticities expressed in the clip.   How does the presence of authenticity contribute to the power of the music for you as a listener/consumer?

4) Watch this clip about the commercial recording of Gregorian chant by a German monastic order.  It provides a parallel example of commodification of the sacred to the earlier “Chant” recording.  It presents a narrative of monastic life and deep history, the place of prayer, work and ritual in that life.  Comment on the discourses of the sacred, the commodity, authenticity, the miraculous, new technologies, commercial success; on Father Karl, the narrator’s story and rationalization for inserting Chant into the commercial marketplace.  What do you think is to be gained by this process, and what might be lost?  How does the music work for the monks?  Is it the same as for the consumer?  Gregorian chant by the monks of Heiligenkruez

It is going to be hard getting this done alongside my Open University commitments. I will have a go at question 4 if I can find time.