Lecture Outlines
The following are lecture outlines that I’ve edited and reformatted, based on the slides offered in class.
I must emphasize that these are outlines, and not notes. In many cases the materials you find here will not make much sense unless you take the time to write down some of the detailed points I offer while we’re discussing each concept in class.
It’s always a good idea to write notes based on what I say while you’re in class, and then use these outlines as a guide to your notes. They outlines are not “self-sufficient” as study guides.
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The titles below are linked to pdf files:
1. Music and Identity, Listening, and course basics. [Updated October 4, 10:00 pm.]
2. Discussion of the term ‘America’, discussion of what’s distinctive about American Music (i.e. the three main themes of the course). [Updated October 4, 10:00 pm.]
3. Defining “diaspora”; the notion of “authenticity.”
4. Introduction to the analysis of song forms [updated October 7, 6:30 pm].
5. Diaspora and Music in the 19th century.
6. (Unknown) African-American musical cultures, testimony, race, and Minstrelsy [updated October 7, 6:30 pm].
7. Folk song and ‘authenticity’ [updated October 7, 6:30 pm].
8. Diaspora, Media, and Commodification in the music of Stephen Foster. [Some slides are duplicates of slides in outline #6.]
9. Introduction to diasporic influences on the blues.
10. Early history of phonograph records and the recording industry.
11. The first commercialized blues; 12-bar blues form.
12. W.C. Handy and the early popularization of the blues.
13. Diasporic impacts on Early Jazz.
14. Fundamentals of the Jazz Era.
15. U.S. Culture in the 1930s, the rise of swing and country music.
16. Swing and national identity in WWII, the deferred dream of the “Harlem Renaissance”.
17. Afro-Caribbean jazz & so-called “Latin” jazz.
18. Preview: the Ingredients of Rock and Roll.
19. Race after WWII and the Electric Blues Diaspora.
20. What is Rock & Roll, really?
21. Race, gender, and the Rhythm and Blues / Rock and Roll distinction.
22. Midterm 2 review: the cultural development of Rock and Roll.