Organology
A.Y. 2022/2023
Learning objectives
The course will present the principles, the sources, and the methods of organology, broadly understood as a field of study in which musical instruments from different cultures are approached through different research perspectives. The course has two main goals: 1. learning history and technology of preeminent Western musical instruments and perceiving their historic and cultural value; 2. understanding the the role of organology as a research perspective in ethnomusicology, focusing on specific topics which are particularly relevant because of their interdisciplinary breadth (instrumental idiomaticity, audiovisual narration, instrument-voice and instrument-space relationship).
Expected learning outcomes
Participants will be able to identify western musical instruments properly and will learn the historical reasons for their birth, transformation, and disappearing. Students will also explore the impact of organology in the ethnomusicological discourse, and the role of musical instruments - understood as products and objects of material and sonic practices - in the musical heritage of different global cultures, and their value as objects in researches with a strong interdisciplinary character.
Lesson period: Second semester
Assessment methods: Esame
Assessment result: voto verbalizzato in trentesimi
Single course
This course cannot be attended as a single course. Please check our list of single courses to find the ones available for enrolment.
Course syllabus and organization
Single session
Responsible
Lesson period
Second semester
Course syllabus
Part A (20 hours, 3 CFU) - Organology: fundamentals, developments and new perspectives
Topics covered:
1. definition of organology and historical account
2. sources and methods of organology (historical/technological)
3. basics of acoustics and psychoacoustic
4. historical reception of the Hornbostel-Sachs system
5. the New Organology
6. theories of instrumental idiomaticity
7. musical instruments and the material turn
Part B (20 hours, 3 CFU) - The cultural history of musical instruments in the Western tradition
Topics covered and activities:
1. history of western musical instruments: from the Middle Ages to the 20th century
2. history and cultural heritage of the Museum of Musical Instruments in Milan
Part C (20 hours, 3 CFU) - The "other music" and its instruments: practices, performances, objects, narratives
Topics covered and activities:
1. the relationship between instruments, performance spaces, and sonic environments
2. the human-instrument relationship in the ethnomusicological discourse
3. musical instruments in the ethnomusicological documentary
4. interactions: speaking instruments, playing voices
5. participation in the lecture-concert series "Musical Instruments on the Silk Road," organized in collaboration with the Istituto Confucio of the University of Milan and the course in Ethnomusicology
6. (optional) visit to the Roberto Leydi Collection of the Center for Dialectology and Ethnography in Bellinzona (Canton Ticino, CH)
Topics covered:
1. definition of organology and historical account
2. sources and methods of organology (historical/technological)
3. basics of acoustics and psychoacoustic
4. historical reception of the Hornbostel-Sachs system
5. the New Organology
6. theories of instrumental idiomaticity
7. musical instruments and the material turn
Part B (20 hours, 3 CFU) - The cultural history of musical instruments in the Western tradition
Topics covered and activities:
1. history of western musical instruments: from the Middle Ages to the 20th century
2. history and cultural heritage of the Museum of Musical Instruments in Milan
Part C (20 hours, 3 CFU) - The "other music" and its instruments: practices, performances, objects, narratives
Topics covered and activities:
1. the relationship between instruments, performance spaces, and sonic environments
2. the human-instrument relationship in the ethnomusicological discourse
3. musical instruments in the ethnomusicological documentary
4. interactions: speaking instruments, playing voices
5. participation in the lecture-concert series "Musical Instruments on the Silk Road," organized in collaboration with the Istituto Confucio of the University of Milan and the course in Ethnomusicology
6. (optional) visit to the Roberto Leydi Collection of the Center for Dialectology and Ethnography in Bellinzona (Canton Ticino, CH)
Prerequisites for admission
The course assumes a good knowledge of the history of Western art music, as well as an adequate knowledge of the main topics in ethnomusicology.
Teaching methods
The course is based on a series of frontal lectures, which are integrated by teaching materials and readings available on the course website (on the ARIEL portal). Some Part C classes will alternate theoretical overviews with screenings and collective discussions of audiovisuals. Two educational visits are also planned, including one (optional) to Roberto Leydi's collection of musical instruments kept at the Center for Dialectology and Ethnography (Switzerland), organized in collaboration with the Ethnomusicology course. The course will also feature a series of lectures on the musical instruments along the Silk Road, held in collaboration with the Istituto Confucio of the University of Milan and the course in Ethnomusicology.
Teaching Resources
Part A
- Meucci, Renato. «Organologia: definizione e contenuti di una recente disciplina». In Il museo degli strumenti musicali del conservatorio "Luigi Cherubini". «Rendo lieti in un tempo gli occhi el core», a cura di Mirella Branca, 108-19. Livorno: Sillabe, 1999.
- Righini, Pietro. L'acustica per il musicista. Fondamenti fisici della musica. Nuova ed. riveduta e corretta. Milano: Ricordi, 1994.
- Guizzi, Febo. "Reflecting on Hornbostel-Sachs's 'Versuch' a Century Later." In Reflecting on Hornbostel-Sachs's "Versuch" a Century Later, edited by Cristina Ghirardini, Proceedings of the international meeting Venice, 3-4 July 2015, 25-34. Quaderni di Etnomusicologia 1. Venezia: Edizioni Fondazione Levi, 2020.
- Meucci, Renato. "Being and Becoming of Musical Instruments: Curt Sachs and Diffusionism." In Reflecting on Hornbostel-Sachs's "Versuch" a Century Later, 35-50.
- Tresch, John, e Emily I. Dolan. "Toward a New Organology: Instruments of Music and Science." Osiris (Bruges) 28, no. 1 (2013): 278-98. https://doi.org/10.1086/671381.
- De Souza, Jonathan. Music at Hand: Instruments, Bodies, and Cognition, capp. 2-3. Oxford Studies in Music Theory. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.
- Sterne, Jonathan. "'What Do We Want?' 'Materiality!' 'When Do We Want It?' 'Now!'" In Media Technologies: Essays on Communication, Materiality, and Society, edited by Tarleton Gillespie, Pablo J. Boczkowski, and Kirsten A. Foot, 119-28. MIT Press, 2013.
Part B
- Restelli, Alessandro, a c. di. Museo degli Strumenti Musicali del Castello Sforzesco. Milano: Skira, 2014.
- Sachs, Curt. Storia degli strumenti musicali. Edizione italiana a cura di Paolo Isotta e Maurizio Papini, traduzione di Maurizio Papini, 2. ed, 305-555. Musica e storia. Milano: A. Mondadori, 1985.
- Guizzi, Febo. «Per la conoscenza, lo studio e la conservazione degli strumenti della musica popolare». In Strumenti musicali e tradizioni popolari in Italia, a cura di Roberto Leydi e Febo Guizzi, 9-29. Etnomusicologia 5. Roma: Bulzoni Editore, 1985.
Part C
- Baily, John. "John Blacking and the 'Human/Musical Instrument Interface': Two Plucked Lutes from Afghanistan." In The Musical Human: Rethinking John Blacking's Ethnomusicology in the Twenty-First Century, edited by Suzel Ana Reily. Aldershot; Burlington: Ashgate, 2006.
- Cestino, Giovanni. "Beyond the Words. Framing Non-Verbal Aspects in the Performance of Songs with Lahuta." Etnografie Sonore / Sound Ethnographies V, no. 1 (2022): 35-54.
- Scaldaferri, Nicola. "Conversation with Hugo Zemp." Visual Ethnography 2, no. 1 (2013): 95-106.
Teaching materials and further readings will be made available through the course website (on the ARIEL portal).
- Meucci, Renato. «Organologia: definizione e contenuti di una recente disciplina». In Il museo degli strumenti musicali del conservatorio "Luigi Cherubini". «Rendo lieti in un tempo gli occhi el core», a cura di Mirella Branca, 108-19. Livorno: Sillabe, 1999.
- Righini, Pietro. L'acustica per il musicista. Fondamenti fisici della musica. Nuova ed. riveduta e corretta. Milano: Ricordi, 1994.
- Guizzi, Febo. "Reflecting on Hornbostel-Sachs's 'Versuch' a Century Later." In Reflecting on Hornbostel-Sachs's "Versuch" a Century Later, edited by Cristina Ghirardini, Proceedings of the international meeting Venice, 3-4 July 2015, 25-34. Quaderni di Etnomusicologia 1. Venezia: Edizioni Fondazione Levi, 2020.
- Meucci, Renato. "Being and Becoming of Musical Instruments: Curt Sachs and Diffusionism." In Reflecting on Hornbostel-Sachs's "Versuch" a Century Later, 35-50.
- Tresch, John, e Emily I. Dolan. "Toward a New Organology: Instruments of Music and Science." Osiris (Bruges) 28, no. 1 (2013): 278-98. https://doi.org/10.1086/671381.
- De Souza, Jonathan. Music at Hand: Instruments, Bodies, and Cognition, capp. 2-3. Oxford Studies in Music Theory. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.
- Sterne, Jonathan. "'What Do We Want?' 'Materiality!' 'When Do We Want It?' 'Now!'" In Media Technologies: Essays on Communication, Materiality, and Society, edited by Tarleton Gillespie, Pablo J. Boczkowski, and Kirsten A. Foot, 119-28. MIT Press, 2013.
Part B
- Restelli, Alessandro, a c. di. Museo degli Strumenti Musicali del Castello Sforzesco. Milano: Skira, 2014.
- Sachs, Curt. Storia degli strumenti musicali. Edizione italiana a cura di Paolo Isotta e Maurizio Papini, traduzione di Maurizio Papini, 2. ed, 305-555. Musica e storia. Milano: A. Mondadori, 1985.
- Guizzi, Febo. «Per la conoscenza, lo studio e la conservazione degli strumenti della musica popolare». In Strumenti musicali e tradizioni popolari in Italia, a cura di Roberto Leydi e Febo Guizzi, 9-29. Etnomusicologia 5. Roma: Bulzoni Editore, 1985.
Part C
- Baily, John. "John Blacking and the 'Human/Musical Instrument Interface': Two Plucked Lutes from Afghanistan." In The Musical Human: Rethinking John Blacking's Ethnomusicology in the Twenty-First Century, edited by Suzel Ana Reily. Aldershot; Burlington: Ashgate, 2006.
- Cestino, Giovanni. "Beyond the Words. Framing Non-Verbal Aspects in the Performance of Songs with Lahuta." Etnografie Sonore / Sound Ethnographies V, no. 1 (2022): 35-54.
- Scaldaferri, Nicola. "Conversation with Hugo Zemp." Visual Ethnography 2, no. 1 (2013): 95-106.
Teaching materials and further readings will be made available through the course website (on the ARIEL portal).
Assessment methods and Criteria
A short paper is required to access the final oral exam. The topic will be previously arranged with professor Cestino (for all students attending the entire course), or with one of the two teachers (for students attending a 6 CFU course).
The course grade breakdown is as follows: 50% final paper, 50% oral exam.
Students unable to attend are required to contact the instructors to be assigned extra readings.
The course grade breakdown is as follows: 50% final paper, 50% oral exam.
Students unable to attend are required to contact the instructors to be assigned extra readings.
L-ART/07 - MUSICOLOGY AND HISTORY OF MUSIC - University credits: 9
Lessons: 60 hours
Professors:
Cestino Giovanni, Restelli Alessandro
Professor(s)