Phillip Sheeran – World Music Composition Styles

World Music Composition Styles is designed to give you a compositional toolkit of world music concepts and ideas that can be used as a starting point for composing in world styles or for spicing up your own music with world flavor. This course will focus on compositional elements in a variety of genres from around the world, including Ireland, Spain, Turkey, Mali, India, Japan, Cuba, Brazil, Argentina, and Australia. It examines the defining characteristics of what differentiates one genre or style of music from another through comparison and extensive analysis of melody, ornamentation, rhythm, harmony, timbre, tempo, and instrumentation. The course takes an in-depth look at the classification of instruments in each style, how they are categorized by type, body shape, and material, how sound is initiated, and how they are played.

This music composition course also includes a technology component designed to teach you best practices in world music production using your digital audio workstation. At the end of each lesson, you will be asked to create and sequence a short composition of music inspired by the style of the country covered.

By the end of this course, you will have a much broadened your exposure to different musical styles, and the necessary skills to incorporate these styles effectively into your own compositions.

By the end of the course, you will be able to:

• Recognize characteristics of rhythm, melody, ornamentation, time signature, harmony, and instrumentation in different world music styles
• Identify and classify instruments into major categories and sub-categories, including instrument shape, material, and sound initiation
• Analyze world music styles using defining characteristics
• Apply production tips and techniques in the sequencing of world music match-ups using a sample library
• Create a fusion piece using characteristic elements and instruments of different styles

Syllabus

Lesson 1 World Music and Instrument Classification

Lesson 2 Celtic Music from Ireland

Lesson 3 Flamenco Music from Spain

Lesson 4 Middle East: Sufi Music from Turkey

Lesson 5 West Africa: Music from Mali

Lesson 6 South Asia: Music from India

Lesson 7 East Asia: Traditional Japanese Music 

Lesson 8 Caribbean: Music from Cuba and the Caribbean 

Lesson 9 Latin America: Music from Brazil 

Lesson 10 Latin America: Tango Music from Argentina 

Lesson 11 Oceania: Music from Australia and Oceania