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2006Dr. Heather Sparling
Office CC252, 563-1242
Course Outline
CELT/FOLK/FINA 207: Celtic Music I
Class times: Mondays, Wednesdays, & Fridays, 9:30-10:30
Office hours: Tuesdays 11:15-12:00, Wednesdays 1:45-2:30, or by appointment
COURSE DESCRIPTION
Studies the history of the Celtic music traditions with special emphasis upon Scottish and CapeBreton musical traditions.
This course will focus on the Gaelic song traditions of Scotland and CapeBreton, although students are free to investigate Irish song in their assignments. We will consider types of Gaelic songs (e.g., waulking/milling songs, psalms, local compositions), Gaelic song aesthetics, performance contexts, the institutionalization and codification of Gaelic song, and the role of Gaelic song in Scottish and CapeBreton communities.
OBJECTIVES
By the end of the course, students will be able to:
- Describe a range of Gaelic songs and Gaelic song types, and explain their roles within Gaelic communities;
- Identify and describe how Gaelic songs and Gaelic song cultures may be both marginalized and reified/romanticized;
- Compare and contrast different types of Gaelic song as well as compare and contrast Scottish and Cape Breton Gaelic songs and contexts;
- Value and respect Gaelic songs and Gaelic song cultures;
- Describe and analyse Gaelic songs in depth.
REQUIRED TEXTS
Course materials are on reserve at the library.
EVALUATION
Attendance & Participation10%
Reading Précis20%
Listening Log20%
Writing Assignment25%
Final Exam25%
Please note that it is a student’s responsibility to keep a copy of all work prepared and submitted to the instructor; this is imperative for reference purposes, in the event items come to be misplaced or in question.
All information drawn from resource materials (including internet sources) and class lectures must be appropriately referenced and acknowledged in footnotes. Plagiarism and cheating are extremely serious offences and carry penalties from failure of an assignment to expulsion from the University. Definitions, procedures and penalties relating to these offences are outlined in the University’s Policy on Plagiarism (which can be found under “Ethical Behaviour in Academic Matters” in the Academic Calendar or on the CBU website – click on “Current Students,” then “Plagiarism”). Please be assured that this matter will be firmly dealt with in this course.
LATE POLICY
No extensions will be permitted, except as a result of documented illness or personal emergency.
ICE & Assessment Standards
Evaluation of student work is one of the most challenging aspects of course design. In thinking about this part of FINA/MUSI 115, I have been guided by an innovative approach to assessment developed by two members of Queen's University's Faculty of Education, Sue Fostaty Young and Robert J. Wilson. 'The ICE Approach' proposes that learning takes place at three distinct levels, which the authors refer to as 'Ideas', 'Connections', and 'Extensions.’ Each phase of learning, Ideas', 'Connections', and 'Extensions', represents a stage of learning development--movement from novice toward expert, from superficial to deep.
Ideas:Basic information, facts, vocabulary, names and elemental concepts that
can be looked up
Connections:Relationships between basic concepts and/or between what is learned and
what students already know
Extensions:Learning used in novel ways; identifying strengths and weaknesses and
how to address weaknesses
We need basic information in order to begin making connections which in turn leads to the possibility of generating new insights. This course deals with all three levels, and I expect you will deal with all three levels in your assignments and tests.
In brief, an assignment that deals primarily with Ideas will be assessed a C, an assignment that makes connections will be assessed a B, and an assignment that incorporates Extensions will be assessed an A.
Attendance & Participation
Attendance is absolutely essential to the success of this course, both for you and for your classmates. While I expect that you will engage with “Ideas” when you do the course readings, I anticipate that we will make “Connections” and “Extensions” in the classroom as we discuss the readings. Moreover, we will listen intensively to music in the classroom, which will offer insights into the music, while developing your critical listening skills. Although we can learn much by reading about music, there is no substitute for actually listening to it.
Reading Précis
This course is extremely reading-intensive. The majority of your time out of class will be spent reading articles. To encourage your preparation for each class, you will be required to submit a précis of each reading assigned. Your précis should consist of THREE sentences:
- the thesis of the article/reading (or, if there is no obvious thesis, its purpose)
- the main points supporting that thesis
- a connection you make between the reading and another course reading or class discussion
Due: Reading Précis will be due at the beginning of the first class on which we
start a new reading. Specific dates will be announced in class. Please note that the schedule of classes below is TENTATIVE and is subject to change.
These précis are designed to ensure you are prepared for class. Reading before class will ensure you are able to benefit from class lectures and discussions, and will also facilitate your ability to participate in class.
Listening Log
For each week (except the first and last), you should write approximately two pages about a Gaelic song of your choice (but not any of those discussed in detail in class or the course readings).
The purpose of the listening log is to encourage you to do listening outside of the course. Although reading about music is useful, you cannot learn about music without listening to music. The listening log will give you the opportunity to apply what you have learned in class to music, and should ultimately make more sense of the classes and the readings.
Please note, however, that I expect you to really work on these listening logs. They are learning opportunities, and you won’t learn anything if you simply tell me what you (think you) already know, or if you simply write about your first impressions. The idea is to develop critical listening skills, and to make links between the readings, the classes, and music.
Due: The beginning of class each Wednesday
Please note that there are NO EXTENSIONS. Obviously, you can (and should) anticipate busy times of the year by preparing listening logs in advance.
Marking:I will mark your first listening log but it will not count. That way, you
will know what I expect.
I will then randomly mark two listening logs at the mid-point of the course, and randomly mark three more at the end of the course.
If you do not hand in all your listening logs, your grade will be calculated by evaluating the percentage of logs handed in. For example, if you hand in 6 of 10 listening logs (60% of the assignment), I will randomly mark 5, and then calculate 60% of that mark for your grade.
Essay
Research essay to be discussed further in class.
Due:Monday, March 27
Final Exam
The format of the exam will be discussed in-class.
ON TIME MANAGEMENT
In addition to time spent in class, all courses also make demands on your non-class time, though usually this is an implicit rather than an explicit demand (ie. it's not clear how many hours you are expected to spend reading, thinking, talking with other students about group assignments, in the library, on the net, etc.).
CELT/FOLK/FINA 207 is designed with the assumption that it is reasonable to expect a full-time student to spend on average a minimum of 8 to 10 hours per week (including in-class time) on each of the five 3 credit courses normally taken in a term.
You will spend 3 hours per week in class for CELT/FOLK/FINA 207. So, to prepare for those classes, and to carry out the assignments for the course, you should spend an average of 5-7 hours per week on learning activities of one sort or another. Sometimes you will want to spend more time, sometimes you will have to spend less, but from the very first week you need to plan your time so you can give attention to your weekly reading, as well as to the assignments that will to some extent overlap one another.
So, how should you plan to allocate the approximately 120 'learning hours' that CELT/FOLK/FINA 207will occupy?
Your 'In-class hours' are already accounted for: 3 hrs/wk x 12 weeks = 36 hrs/term
This leaves your 'Out-of-class hours': 7 hrs/wk x 12 weeks = 84 hours/term
What follows are my calculations of how those 'Out of class hours' could be allocated.
Assigned reading and précis: average 4 hrs/week = 44 hours total
Listening logs: average 1.5 hrs/log = 15 hours total
Research Project: 17 hours
- search for sources: 2.5 hours
- reading sources, taking notes: 7 hours
- determining thesis and essay structure: 1 hours
- drafting essay: 2.5 hours
- peer editing someone else’s essay (while yours is being peer edited): 2 hours
- editing and finalizing essay: 2 hours
Final Exam: study 8 hours
TOTAL OUT-OF-CLASS HOURS: 75
TENTATIVE SCHEDULE OF CLASSES
Weeks 1 & 2: Introduction & Fundamentals of Music
Sawyers, June Skinner. 2000. The Language of Angels: Songs of the Gael (Chapter 5). In Celtic Music: A Complete Guide: Da Capo Press, 109-144.
Chapman, Malcolm. 1994. Thoughts on Celtic Music. In Ethnicity, Identity, and Music: The Musical Construction of Place, ed. Martin Stokes, 29-44.
Weeks 3 & 4: Cape Breton/Canadian Overview
Shaw, John, ed. 2000. Gaelic Singing and Broad Cove Parish. In Brìgh an Òrain. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press.
Dunn, Charles. 1991 [1953]. The Folk-Culture Transplanted (Chapter 4). In Highland Settler: A Portrait of the Scottish Gael in CapeBreton and Eastern Nova Scotia. Wreck Cove, Nova Scotia: Breton Books.
MacDonald, Martha. 1988. The CapeBreton Ceilidh. Culture and Tradition 12: 76-85.
Week 5: Invention of Tradition
Trevor-Roper, Hugh. 1983. The Invention of Tradition: The Highland Tradition of Scotland. In The Invention of Tradition, ed. Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, 15-41. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.
Kennedy, Michael and Robert Campbell. 1994. The Kennedy-Campbell Debate. In Canadian Music: Issues of Hegemony and Identity, ed. Beverley Diamond & Robert Witmer, 405-416. Toronto: Canadian Scholars' Press.
Weeks 6 & 7: Bards
McKean, Thomas A. 1997. The Song-Maker’s Art (Chapter 4), The Function of Song in a Hebridean Community (Chapter 5), and The Song-Maker’s Aesthetic (Chapter 6). In Hebridean Song-Maker: Iain MacNeacail of the Isle of Skye. Edinburgh: Polygon.
Week 8: Local Songs – Songs & Stories
“’Oran do Shep,’ an Englishtown Song,” Cape Breton Magazine (local humorous song), v 58 (Aug) 1991.
“Allan MacLeod: Stories & Gaelic Songs,” Cape Breton Magazine, v 74 (June) 1999
Weeks 9 & 10: Waulking & Milling Frolics
Campbell, John Lorne and Francis Collinson. 1969. The Waulking Described and The Subjects of the Songs. In Hebridean Folksongs, vol 1, 3-23. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
MacDonald, Marilyn. 1988-9. Milling Frolics on the NorthShore: A Look at the Past, Present and Future. Sydney, CapeBreton. (Beaton Essay Competition 1988-9)
“A Milling Frolic on the NorthShore,” Cape Breton Magazine v 21 (Dec) 1978
Reprinted in Down North: The Book of Cape Breton’s Magazine, ed. Ronald Caplan.
Week 11 & 12: Puirt-a-beul: Language & Music
Shaw, John. 1992/3. Language, Music and Local Aesthetics: Views from Gaeldom and Beyond. Scottish Language 11/12: 37-64.
Sparling, Heather. 2003. "Music is Language and Language is Music": Language Attitudes and Musical Choices in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Ethnologies 25/2: 145-171. Available online from:
Debate in Celtic Heritage:
MacDonald, Alexander. 1996. Cape Breton Fiddle Music: Is it unique? Yes! Why? Celtic Heritage, June/July, 8-9.
Taylor, Seumas. 1997. Standing up for Gaelic Culture. Celtic Heritage, June/July, 5.
MacDonald, Alexander. 1997. The Gaelic in the Fiddle: Debunking the Myths. Celtic Heritage, June/July, 5-6.
Taylor, Seumas. 1998. ... in which we learn more of Gaelic music. Celtic Heritage, December/January, 5-6, 26-8.
MacDonald, Alexander. 1998. Gaelic Music. What is it? Celtic Heritage, February/March, 32-3.