Apr 07, 2025  
Fall 2025 Undergraduate Catalog 
    
Catalog Navigation
Catalog Home
General Information
Policies and Regulations


Colleges and Schools
Special Academic Opportunities
The Stony Brook Curriculum (SBC)


Majors
Minors
Course Descriptions


Academic Calendars
Career and Program Explorer
Financial Aid
Tuition and Costs


Bulletin Archives
Fall 2025 Undergraduate Catalog

Ethnomusicology

Return to {$returnto_text} Return to: Minors

Department of Music, College of Arts and Sciences
 
Chair: Christina Dahl
Director of Undergraduate Studies: Margaret Schedel
Ethnomusicology Faculty: Margarethe Adams, Benjamin Tausig
Undergraduate Secretary: Germaine Berry

Office: 3304 Staller Center for the Arts
Phone: (631) 632-7330
Email: margarethe.adams@stonybrook.edu

Department Website

The minor in Ethnomusicology is designed to provide undergraduates with knowledge about a range of ethnomusicology topics, methods, and theoretical perspectives, in conjunction with a related area of specialization in the social sciences. In addition to ethnomusicology classes, including survey courses and courses on specialized topics, students will take a combination of performance and social science classes on relevant subjects in other departments. The capstone course is MUS 451 - Senior Seminar in Ethnography of Music  in which students conduct ethnographic research projects related to music. The minor in ethnomusicology is distinct from other existing music minors in that it offers training in fieldwork methods, an anthropological approach that does not rely heavily on the skills of analysis and performance that may be used in musicology, jazz studies, and the like. Moreover, it often emphasizes repertoire and practice from outside of Europe and the United States (our minor is especially strong in the musics of Asia). Ethnomusicology is the study of musical cultures, and entails a disciplinarily unique set of questions and methodologies, as well as objects.

Requirements for the Minor in Ethnomusicology (ETH)

Students are required to take a series of three ethnomusicology classes, two related classes in other departments, three performance classes, and a 400-level ethnography class (MUS 451 - Senior Seminar in Ethnography of Music ). Music majors must take an additional independent study.

Completion of the minor requires 21 credits.

Students should be advised to monitor their progress toward completing their upper division credit requirement. It is therefore suggested that students take at least three upper-division courses as part of their ethnomusicology minor.

Ethnomusicology series (3 classes required; 9 credits)

Notes:

Students must take one introductory course (either MUS 105  or MUS 109 ), and choose two of the other courses. MUS 311  may be repeated with a different topic (i.e., “Music and Islam” and “Music of China”). Other ethnomusicology options possible with UGPD permission.

Area Studies and Social Sciences (2 courses required; 6 credits)

Students must choose two from the following list of courses (below) from other departments.

Petitions for other courses can be submitted to the UGPD.

Performance/practice-based requirements (3 semesters required; 3 credits)

Option A

3 semesters of Ethnomusicology ensemble

Option B

2 semesters of Ethnomusicology ensemble

such as

1 semester of composition/production class

Other performance/production options possible with UGPD permission

Notes:

If a Music major wants to also do a minor in Ethnomusicology he/she must undertake a relevant independent project under faculty supervision, taken as a 3 credit MUS 487 - Independent Project .

Return to {$returnto_text} Return to: Minors