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#1 2010-07-10 10:50:33

Ai_Ki_Pez_Man
Member
Registered: 2010-07-10
Posts: 1

University suggestions

I recently completed my master's degree in ethnomusicology at the Univeristy of North Texas and am looking at getting into a PhD program within the next few years.  I am hoping to call on the experience of this forum to provide some insight.

My master's thesis focused on online communities and the transmission of technique in marginalized and novel instruments, in particular the Chapman Stick.  Although I garnered a lot of interest and support in this emerging field of ethno, it is sort of a "hard sell" when one is asked what one's "area" is.  For many reasons, I had a strong desire to investigate Japanese music during these studies, but did not find much support for this area.  I would like to extend this work in my PhD, but instead center on Japanese music/media.  To this end I have been studying shakuhachi and Japanese language in the interim.

Does anyone in the forum have any experience at a University in this field that can make some recommendations or offer contact information?  Please feel free to contact me off-list if you feel more comfortable doing so.

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#2 2010-07-12 00:59:56

Jam
Member
From: Oxford, England
Registered: 2009-10-02
Posts: 257

Re: University suggestions

If your Japanese is up to scratch then perhaps a course at Geidai?

東京藝術大学:
http://www.geidai.ac.jp/

How long have you been studying for? How good is your playing? I don't know much about PhDs but I imagine if your focus is on performance you'd have to be pretty good!

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#3 2010-10-14 13:19:28

sokyoku
Member
From: Toronto, Canada
Registered: 2010-10-13
Posts: 21
Website

Re: University suggestions

York University in Toronto, Canada, has a PhD program with good support for ethnomusicology.  Their undergraduate courses already offer Japanese music including private koto, shamisen, and shakuhachi lessons, and also a Japanese Music Ensemble course.  The new-this-year undergraduate Chair is an ethnomusicologist and her focus for her three-year term is to try and bring world music and ethnomusicology more to the fore at York so as to attract more of same.  The current graduate Chair is into everything, including digital, and is very broad-minded.  So this might be a good time to think about York as a possible university.  While I do teach in York's music department, I don't have personal experience of their PhD program.  (There is another member in this forum who is currently enrolled in York's PhD program and he has a Japanese music topic.  He would be a good resource for you to talk to - perhaps he might see this post and come forward with some detailed info for you, or you can contact me off-list and I can give you his information.)

You can check out York's graduate programs and find contact info here - http://www.yorku.ca/grdmusic (although I notice in browsing through it that it does not seem to be completely current).  Also, you can get an idea of how broad their world focus is by checking out the faculty list here - http://www.yorku.ca/finearts/music/fac.htm.  Please note that the shakuhachi instructor on the list is no longer correct - starting this year, it is now Dr. Gerard Yun.

Hope this helps a bit.  Good luck finding your program.


Without music, life would be a mistake.

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#4 2010-10-14 22:51:05

Daniel Ryudo
Shihan/Kinko Ryu
From: Kochi, Japan
Registered: 2006-02-12
Posts: 355

Re: University suggestions

There is also York University in the U.K., which has a good program in ethnomusicology.  Recently Kiku Day finished a shakuhachi related Phd at the University of London's SOAS, though I believe their Japan specialist may have retired.  The University of Sydney offers a graduate degree in shakuhachi.  Shakuhachi grandmaster Riley Lee has said that the future of the shakuhachi is in Australia.

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#5 2010-10-15 06:57:43

Josh
PhD
From: Grand Island, NY/Nara, Japan
Registered: 2005-11-14
Posts: 305
Website

Re: University suggestions

Tokyo Arts Univ. seems to be more performance oriented, so maybe a program at Hawaii Univ. would be a bit more receptive to a combo ethnomusicology and Japanese studies plus media project. I finished my Phd this year at Osaka Univ. in the Sociology department and ended up pretty much doing my own thing regarding traditional music and music sociology. I suggested a place like Hawaii because you might be better off finding an institution where you can at least get the support of your advisor and do your own thing. My advisor was from Berkeley and Hawaii and he liked the originality of the project, plus I was quite free to also study under Shimura and Tsukitani senseis over at the Osaka Univ. of Arts.

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