Junko Oba

Every culture bears unique sensibilities to sounds. People cultivate distinctive ways of hearing, understanding, and relating to them. Different instruments are devised to encapsulate distinctive cultural values, not only acoustically but also visually in their material forms. This course explores diverse music cultures of the world through the lens of critical organology (the critical study of musical instruments). Our investigation encompasses subjects such as social functions and significations of the instruments, e.g., ritual objects, status symbols, and exotic commodities; myths and symbolism attributed to the instruments; technology and craftsmanship involved in the fabrication; and ecological and ethical concerns for the use of certain materials, e.g., exotic wood, animal body parts, toxic chemicals, among others. By cross-culturally and cross-historically examining different ways in which humans have interacted with sound making objects, mechanisms, and ideas, we will critically examine, question, and reconsider what entails musical instruments Keywords:Musical instrument, material culture, environment, ethnomusicology, sounds

This Division I seminar explores Japanese culture using Japanese songs as literary, musical and sociocultural texts that project distinctive aesthetics, history, and collective memories that Japanese people nurtured. The course examines a broad range of materials, both in terms of musical genres and historical periods. We sing select songs in Japanese in order to familiarize ourselves with the sounds of Japanese language and the correlation between the language and the musical structures; study their lyrics in English translation and discuss their meanings, culture-specific connotations and functions in their contexts. In addition to reading select articles, students conduct a series of mini research on specific songs and topics at several junctures during the course and share their findings in class discussions. This is a CULTURAL STUDIES COURSE but neither a language nor music performance course. No previous musical training or knowledge of Japanese language is required. Keywords:Japanese cultures, sensibilities, singing

The first commercial radio broadcasting in the U.S. was on November 2, 1920, when Pittsburgh's KDKA announced the result of the presidential election, cutting out the newspaper. The date was deliberately chosen to demonstrate the power of radio over print media. In March 2024, presenting her eighth album Cowboy Carter in a frame of fictional country music radio station, KNTRY Radio Texas, Beyonce problematized the Americana narrative of country music as well as racial politics on air. Since its inception, radio has been deeply integrated into our political life, shaping voices, telling stories, and feeding spatiotemporal imaginations.?This course explores cultural history and the enduring impacts of radio as tools of both political violence and resistance. We investigate technological and material cultures of radio equipment, radio programming as politics, and sonic territorialization and grassroots resilience among other issues. Case studies cover diverse geographical areas and the times from 1920 to the present Keywords:Radio, sound, voice, politics, media

This course introduces students to basic mechanisms of diatonic harmony. Through analysis, performance, and composition, we will build a solid working understanding of basic principles of melody, harmony, and form common in many musical traditions that we consume in our everyday lives. In the first half of the course, we explore composition in 4-part polyphonic texture with and without modulation. In the second half, we explore modes as storytelling devices. Throughout the semester, we study different ways to build a larger coherent structure from smaller melodic motifs and harmonic progressions. Students attend two class meetings and one ear training session per week. Multiple ear training sessions will be scheduled according to class members' availability (typically in the early evening or Friday afternoon). Student interested in taking this course need to take the diagnostic evaluation in the first class Keywords:Music theory, harmony, voice-leading, modes, storytelling

"Listening" occupies a special place in Japanese cultures. Indications abound in literature, folklore, and everyday practices that listening has been nurtured as a multisensory experience and that it encompasses a wide range of phenomena. Whether it be in the haiku poetry reading, religious ceremony, political protest, or mundane activity, listening enables people to transcend spatiotemporal boundaries, connect with the intangible and the invisible, and engage in the world and life in a deeper philosophical consciousness. This course explores Japanese sound cultures, with special attention to the underlying unique conceptions of "listening": how have people in Japan cultivated distinct sensibilities in listening, and how, in turn, such sensibilities have constituted Japanese sound cultures. Course materials (readings and case studies for analysis) are drawn from diverse sources across different art forms and history, e.g., literature, architecture, theater, film, martial arts, contemporary popular culture media, as well as quotidian sound-making and listening activities. No previous training in music is necessary to take this course, but the required coursework includes weekly listening exercises, various analysis assignments, occasional virtual hands-on and group activities. Through these exercises, selected readings, and class discussion, students are invited to open their ears, senses, and minds to unique cultural values, sensibilities, and practices of listening in Japanese sound cultures and rigorously question their own practice and conception of "listening." Keywords:Japan, listening, sounds, sensibilities