Asian Musical Cultures (MUSL 170)

Ever have the experience that you were listening to Smashing Pumpkins or Barry Manilow for the three thousandth time, and you started wondering if that was all there is to music? Ever wonder what people listen to and play on the other side of the world, where Lata Mangeshkar (who?) is a household word, but many people have never heard of Michael Jackson? (Imagine!) If your curiosity has been aroused, MUSL 170 is the course for you! In this course, you'll learn about the Indian sitar (the musical instrument, not the restaurant!), Indonesian monkey chanting, dramatic music of Japan, and Chinese opera--by doing, listening, reading, and best of all, some hands-on performance. By the end of the semester, your musical horizons will have been broadened, you'll start to appreciate sounds that might have seemed bizarre and exotic previously, and maybe when you're deciding which tunes to put on the cassette player at home one day, you'll even automatically go for the erh-hu or kabuki music--and give that Smashing Pumpkins a rest!

Credit?
Arts and Science--CPLE international component, option 3 (East Asia)
Engineering--social science
Peabody--humanities or social science, depending on major

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