Getting Started

Introduction

What Makes Music "Musical"?

Questions to Ask

1. Who is making the music?

2. Who listens to the music?

3. What is the musical system?

4. How is the music performed?

5. What is a musical artifact?

Resources

Sample Analysis: Steel bands in Brooklyn

Annotated Bibliography

Music Online

You Be the Historian!

About the Author

Credits

Download Essay

Music: What is a musical artifact?
Developed with Beth Bullard, George Mason University

This interactive exercise is designed for students. Students read a description of a concert of South Indian music featuring a violin, drum, clay pot, and flute. They then complete a matching activity that allows students to see old images of these instruments and listen to them. Finally, students are asked to determine which instrument was introduced most recently into south Indian classical music.

Music: What is the musical system?
Developed with Beth Bullard, George Mason University

This interactive exercise is designed for students. Students watch a one minute excerpt from a South Indian classical music concert performed in 1995 in Chennai, south India, and try to determine the rhythmic structure of the piece.