[AHMM V3320] Music of East Asia

Reading is fairly light but steady and ranges from contemporary academic essays to ancient texts and even poems. There is no textbook for the course but rather a selection of downloadable texts available through courseworks.

There was a take-home midterm based on a short list of questions. Dr. Chung places a tremendous emphasis on concise and clear writing so the page-count wasn't long but the expectations were high. Quality, not quantity. The questions were pretty conceptual in nature and some students felt that Dr. Chung was a little too loose during her lectures and then a little too focused in terms of what she expected from the midterm. Even though I did very well on the midterm, I can see how some could feel this way.

A 4-5 page concert report is also required. With all the music events happening in and around NYC, it wasn't hard for me to find a show to cover.

Finally there was an oral final where students were required to sit in Dr. Chung's office one at a time along with her TA and present an argument based on one of a list of pre-prepared topics. At first I was totally scared by this concept but the range of the topics she chose was broad enough for a good conversation to develop quite naturally and I left the final feeling as if I had just had more of a philosophical chat with a good friend.

This class is more difficult than the default Music Hum course and I would recommend it only to people who actually want the challenge of a course on East Asian culture/music that is based more on conceptual thinking and non-Western ideologies. This class is not an easy A and students who don't really get involved and attend class did not do very well in it during the semester I took it. I will also say that this course had an absolutely profound influence on me not only as student but as a person in general and I am really glad that I took it.