Omnia Podcast: Deep Listening and The Sound of Philadelphia (Audio)

Philadelphia has a deep musical history, and students in Carol Muller’s graduate-level ethnomusicology field methods class focused on one facet of that rich tradition, documenting the city’s Black music history. They interviewed figures ranging from Grammy-award winning hip-hop producer Jahlil Beats to Mark Christman and Anthony Tidd of the Ars Nova Worskhop to radio icon Dyana Williams. 

The class also produced a podcast based on the book The There’s That Beat! Guide to the Philly Sound by Dave Moore. Each student created an episode based on one chapter, including music samples to make the material more accessible to all audiences. 

The class was part of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Paideia Program at Penn, which is focused on educating the whole student. Paideia funded some of the guests, and other research interviews were supported by a Klein Family Social Justice Grant. 
 

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Muller, a professor of music, has been teaching the field methods class since 2001. Supported by the Penn Global program, she recently spent time in Australia working with aboriginal leaders—an experience that she says has helped her rethink the focus of her field methods class. The course now centers around deep listening and working to understand the relationships between humans, non-human animals, and the environment. “To fully grasp human sound production, we need to expand how we see, hear, and know the world,” she wrote in the course description. 

Music Professor Carol Muller (right) has reimagined her graduate ethnomusicology field methods class to center on deep listening. Her students, including (top left) Kwame Ocran, studying historical musicology, and Yuri Seung, focusing on gender, sexuality, and women’s studies and experimental ethnography, helped document Philadelphia’s Black music history. (Images: Brooke Sietinsons; courtesy of Kwame Ocran and Yuri Seung)