MUSIC 250
Topics in Music and Culture
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Lists
August
Friday 30, No Class
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September
Monday, 2 The African Heritage
Objectives: *
to know the general characteristics of West African music
*
to know the differences between idiophones, aerophones, chordophones
and membranophones
*
to know the general role of music in particular West African villages
*
terms: griots, time line, and call and response patterns,
Read Southern Chap. 1 "The African Legacy"
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Wednesday 4, Cultural Blending in the Americas
Objectives: *
to know the kinds of instruments, dances, musical forms and characteristics
that survived in the Americas
*
terms: dirty tones, talking drums, palos, agogo, bomba, kalinda music,
congos, capoeira, cabildo and voodoo
Read Roberts, Black Music of Two Worlds Chapter 2
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Friday, 6. Cultural Blending in the Americas
Objectives: *
to have a general understanding of the influence of European music and
customs on neo-African music throughout parts of the Diaspora
*
to compare and contrast the rate of acculturation between the colonies
*
terms: ring shout, habanera, quadrille, contradanza, quinto, polka,
baquine, marimbula and tonados
Read, Roberts, Black Music of Two Worlds Chapter 3
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Monday 9, The Colonial Era and the Cultural Blending of Cultures and
Traditions
Objectives: *
to know the kinds of music performed and instruments used by Europeans
*
to know the general characteristics of European music
*
to have a general understanding of how African and European music blended
*
terms and names: lining out, psalms, Issac Watts, hymnody, ballads,
jig, "Massachusetts Law of the 1624," "Pinkster Day"
and "Lection Day"
Read Southern Chapter 2
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Wednesday 11, The Colonial Era and the Cultural Blending of Cultures
and Traditions
Objectives:*
to know the rate of acculturation in America during the Colonial Era
*
to understand the significance of New Orleans as it relates to the acculturation
of African music
Read Dena Epstein, Sinful Tunes and Spirituals "The Acculturation
of African Music in the New World."
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Friday, 13. Music and Meaning
Objectives: *
to know the "four assumptions" that Small discusses as they
pertain to our understanding of the nature and function of music
Read Christopher Small, Music of the Common Tongue Chapter 2 "On
the Ritual Performance"
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Monday 16, The Sacred Music Tradition. Hymns and Spirituals
Objectives:*
to know how Black American sacred music developed through the fusion
of European and African music
*
to understand how sacred music reflected the slaves experience
*
to know the general characteristics of the Negro spirituals in regards
to both text and music
*
to know the five themes that Southern discusses
*
to know the performance practices of spirituals
*
terms: Second Great Awakening, tabernacle, Richard Allen, wandering
refrains, camp meetings, spiritual songs, wandering verses, ring shout,
brush arbor, the invisible church, ring spirituals,monophonic, polyphonic,
and homophonic, heterophony, basers, and overlapping call and response
patterns.
Read. Southern, Chapter 3, pages 71 - 89 and 178 - 204
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Wednesday 18, The Sacred Music Tradition. Spirituals
Objectives: *
to understand the origins of the ring shout, its survival throughout
the Americas and its relationship with the spiritual
Read Stuckey, Slave Culture. "Introduction: Slavery and the Circle
of Culture." pages 10- 17 and 27 - 32.(first 2 paragraphs).
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Friday, 20, The Spiritual After the Civil War/ Group led discussion
Elizabeth and JulietteObjectives: *
to understand the roles college choirs and black churches played in
the spread and popularization of the spirituals during the Reconstruction
Era and beyond.
Read, Southern 227 -231
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Monday 23, The Birth of Delta Blues/ Group led discussion Courtney,
Daniel and Eibsee
Objectives: *
to know the origins of the blues
*
to know the characteristics and performance practices of blues in general
and Delta blues in particular
*
to understand how blues reflected the lives of the performers and the
those of black Americans.
*
terms: blues progressions, bottle neck technique, 12-bar
structure, worksong, blue note, calls, whoops, fieldhollers, arhoolies,
folk ballads, Brer Rabbit, trickster, juke joints, Will Dockery
Read. Barlow Chapters 1 & 2
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Wednesday 25, Blues in Texas /Group led discussion Kristie and Kathleen
Read. Barlow Chap. 3.
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Friday, No Class. Work on paper and study for quiz.
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Monday, 30. Quiz
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October
Wednesday, 2 Ragtime Group led discussion Crystal and Nana
Objectives:
*
to know the characteristics of ragtime
*
to be familiar with the overall styles of the composers associated with
ragtime
*
to know the reasons why ragtime was popular
*
terms: syncopation, jig piano, cakewalk, jig time, classic ragtime,
multisectional and ragging.
Read Southern, Chap. 9 pages 313 – 332
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Friday 4, New Orleans and the Birth of Jazz
Objectives:*
to know the roots of early roots of jazz
*
to understand the role New Orleans played in the development of jazz
*
to discuss the importance of Sidney Bechet, Jelly Roll Morton and Louis
Armstrong in the development and spread of jazz.
*
Short paper is due (2 - 4 pages)------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Black Renaissance: Race, Gender and Heritage. Chicago and New York
Monday 7, Black Women and Blues. 1920s - 1930s Group led discussion
Tawny, Steve, Andrew Stroup and Sarah
Objectives:
*
to know the general characteristics of classic city blues
*
to know the reasons why blues recordings of black women became popular
*
to know the various social and political themes present in the songs
of black women
*
to understand the importance of blues in the context of the Harlem Renaissance
Read Davis "Mama's Got the Blues" and "Blame it on the
Blues."
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Wednesday 9, Black Women and Blues. 1920s - 1930s Zach and Shawn
Read Davis "Up in Harlem Every Saturday Night."
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Friday 11, "Duke Elllington and the Harlem Renaissance"
Objectives:*
to be familiar with the musical style of Duke Ellington
*
to be familiar with the representational compositions of Ellington as
reflections of the black experience.
Read Tucker, Chap. 7Black Music in the Harlem Renaissance.
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Monday 14, The Influence of Blues and Spirituals on the Classical
Works of William Dawson, Florence Price and William Grant Still.
Objectives:*
to discuss how and why these composers used folk music in their works
*
terms: symphony, movement and scherzo
Read, Brown Black Music in the Harlem Renaissance. Chap. 5
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Wednesday 16, Classical Performers in Classical Music: Marian Anderson,
Roland Hayes and Paul Robeson
Objectives:*
to understand the importance of these performers in the preservation
of the spirituals
*
to understand how and why they used spirituals and their stature as
performers in the fight for civil rights
Film Marian Anderson
Read Southern Chap. 11 408 - 417
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Friday 18, No Class. Midterm paper is due ( 4 - 6 pages)
Fall Break. Oct. 18 - 28
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Monday 28, The Birth of Gospel Music. Chicago 1930s - 1940s
Objectives:*
to know the general characteristics and performance practices of early
20 century gospel
*
to know the major performers and composers of gospel music
*
to know the significance of gospel within the black experience
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Wednesday 30, Thomas A. Dorsey
Read Michael Harris, The Rise of Gospel Blues. Chapters 8 and 9
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November
Friday 1, Midterm Exam
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Post-World War II. Gospel, Rhythm and Blues and Urban Blues
Monday 4, The Golden Years of Gospel: 1940s - 1960s
Read Southern pages 475 - 487 and Afro-American Religious History.
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Wednesday 6, Urban Blues in Chicago and New York
Read Barlow Chap. 9 Andrew M., Matthew Johnson and Amy Noll.
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Friday 8, Read Davis "Strange Fruit" Michael Heller and Adam
Hoye
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Monday 11, Rhythm and Blues
Film. That Rhythm, Those Blues
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Wednesday 13, Dinah Washington, Lavern Baker and Sepia Sinatras
Doo-wop Groups John Chavez and David Miller
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Friday 15, Motown Andrew and Crystal
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The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s
Objective: to discuss the various themes that inspired activism, instilled
pride and reflected the climate of the period
Monday 18, Songs of the Civil Rights Movement.
Read Chap. 47 "Singing of Good Tidings and Freedom" by Mahalia
Jackson.
What the Music Said Chapter One pages 46 -53
Tawny, Steve and Sarah
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The Jazz World Speaks
Wednesday 20, John Coltrane, Max Roach, Archie Shepp and Nina Simone
Elizabeth and Juliette
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The Power of Soul and the Black Power Movement
Friday 22, Soul/Motown: James Brown, Aretha Franklin, the Impressions
and the Temptations Read What the Music Said Chapter Two pages 55 -61
Courtney, Daniel and Eibsee
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Saturday 23, "Young, Gifted and Black Gospel Choir Concert"
4 p.m. Sebring-Lewis Hall
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War, Revolution and Social Unrest
Monday 25, Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder(Michael Heller and Adam Hoye)
Jimi Hendrix, Gil-Scott Heron and the Last Poets Andrew M., Matthew
Johnson and Amy Noll.
Read What the Music Said Chapters Two pages 61 -72 and Four pages 101
- 112
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One Nation Under a Groove
Wednesday 27, Funk and the Sound of Philadephia
What the Music Said Chapter Four pages 112 - 124 Zach and Shawn
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Thanksgiving Break
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December
Themes of Struggle, Resistance and Nationalism in Rap and Hip-Hop
Monday 2,
Read Todd Boyd "Check Yo Self, Before You Wreck Yo Self: Variations
in Rap Music and Popular Culture" John, David, Kristie and Kathleen
Paper titles are Due
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Wednesday 4, Oral presentations, Amy, Zach and Shawn
You are expected to attend all oral presentations. Failure to do so
will affect your course grade.
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Friday 6, Courtney, Andrew, Juliette, Adam and Michael
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Monday 9,John, David, Crystal and Matt
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Wednesday 11, Steve, Kristie, Kathleen, and Lizzie
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Friday 13, Sarah, Daniel, Tawny and Eibsee
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Final paper (6 - 8 pages) due Thursday Dec. 19.
