Music 190W Week 1

Week 1 reading

Preface (pp. vii-ix), and Chapter 1

Week 1 listening

Six tracks listed below from the 2 CD set.

Week 1 topic: The Infinite Variety of Music

The chapter begins with a brief reference to its focus on American music in all its diversity, and its focus on music in a global context. It explains the concept of the American Mainstream and how it has been enriched by the cultural practices of immigrant groups. Next, it discusses the study of music in its cultural context and the problem of identifying music with labels.

Perceptive listening is aided by musical discourse, or the way we talk and write about music. This course is intended to develop your perceptive listening skills, also called active listening skills. In this kind of listening, we use information about the music to create a context for listening. We use musical discourse (talk about music) to heighten our awareness of specific aspects of the music. We become aware of how the music fits into a cultural situation. By preparing to listen beforehand, and talking and writing about what we hear afterwards, we will gradually become able to hear more deeply into the music.

This course requires no prior technical experience in music. It depends on the listening experience every person in this class has acquired by growing up in your home society.

Study questions

1. The American mainstream culture was derived from the culture of which early settler group?
2. What does "assimilation" mean?
3. How have the musical practices of immigrant groups interacted with the American musical mainstream?
4. Scholars who study music in its cultural context are called what?
5. What sorts of questions do such scholars ask about music?
6. What is acculturation?
7. What are some of the contradictions you encounter when trying to use the labels classical, folk, and popular to describe music?
8. Describe the kind of listening that this class will stress.

Listening review

Chapters 1-15 of the text end with selected music examples for active listening. The study in sound for chapter 1 presents short segments of eight musical works and suggests six things to listen for on p. 10. Six of these are on your 2 CD set:

• "Sylvie," CD 1 track 1
• "Bourgeois Blues," CD 1 track 6
• "Taking a Chance on Love," CD 1 tracks 13-15
• "Every Time You Say Goodbye," CD 1 track 27
• "Magonde" (Song for the Chief), CD 2 track 7
• "Orisun Iye," CD 2 track 8

Listen to these pieces on your own and apply the questions on p. 10 to them.

Terms and concepts

culture
American mainstream
musical style
ethnic minorities
assimilation
ethnomusicologist
acculturation
perceptive or active listening
pulse
bars
phrases
forward musical energy
musical patterns

Quiz

Starting with week 2, there will be a quiz that leads to the writing assignment prompt. The first writing assignment is due in class at our first meeting of week 2. The writing prompt is:

To the extent that it is under your control, go without listening to music for one entire day. Write about the experience in one double-spaced page.

Hacker handbook exercise

(starts next week)

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Music 190W page
This file was last modified on 16 May 2000.