MCGY3602: Understanding East Asian Music

Academic blog post (20%); Class participation (30%); Major essay (50%).

None

For this semester, I took MCGY3602 to fulfil my mandatory musicology ethnographical studies unit for my principal study. Unlike the other musicology units I have taken at the Con so far, this unit challenged myself and my peers to explore music with a variety of ways of thinking, especially those beyond the eurocentrism that had, for most of us, been ingrained as a result of our musical training and upbringing. The unit focuses on Chinese, Korean and Japanese music, with weekly guests that are invited based on the topic we were covering for the week. I initially came into the unit quite nervous and only really being familiar with the popular music of these cultures, and to an extent the traditional music of Japan because of my mum, but found myself engaging deeply with the diverse range of genres and musical styles explored in the unit.

For a 6cp unit, MCGY3602 was very light in workload and, to an extent, felt more like a 3cp subject. This made my experience taking it in quarantine really pleasant because I only had to focus on getting a reading (which was roughly 20-30 pages long) and maybe four discussion questions done each week. We were also assigned to do one in-class presentation based on one of the readings. I chose to do mine on the music in Akira Kurosawa's Ran which was heaps of fun because I actually studied it in Year 11 for English. Having the opportunity to analyse the music and to draw connections between it and the concepts we were learning about in class was highly beneficial for developing my critical analysis and thinking skills. I also enjoyed visiting the White Rabbit Gallery again for my first assignment and combining my passion for art with musical analysis. The only heavy aspect of this unit was the major essay which was 3000 words. I struggled with choosing the right works to explore at first because of how broad the essay questions were but found my footing, partially because I knew at last what I was doing but also because of the ever-increasing closeness of the deadline. Overall, the assessments were fun to complete and I have no regrets for the subject in terms of how I conducted myself with the work we had in it.

In hindsight, I wish I had asked more questions in class because we had many interesting and engaging guests come in to workshop with us. I felt like this was what made the unit so effective and moving for us as students. Catherine is also quite quiet and reserved from first impression but she was a highly inspiring lecturer and offered us many opportunities to exercise our creativity in this unit of study. I would strongly recommend anyone who has spare room in their degree at the Con to take this unit which will not only change how you experience music, but also how you appreciate it.

1x 2 hour seminar

3/5

Yes; they are usually uploaded after the class but due to COVID-19, they were often pre-recorded.

Catherine Ingram, Lewis Cornwell and weekly guest lecturers

None

4/5

None; set readings are assigned on Canvas for each week and can be retrieved from the USYD library.

2020, Semester 1

94 HD