Course | Description |
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MU 103 Music Appreciation | This course is an overview of the sources, media, and functions of music during the historical periods traditionally associated with music history. The roles of the composer, arranger, artist performer, critic, and listener are explored and defined. Emphasis is on the development of listening awareness within the broad outline of music history. This course fulfills the Humanities General Education requirement. |
MU 280 The History of Popular Music | The History of Popular Music is designed to introduce students to the history of popular music in the United States, from 1900 to the present. The focus will be on understanding the social realities and philosophic questions that led to the emergence of a particular style of popular music in a particular time-period. For instance, much of the U.S. popular music that was popular in the mid-1800s to the beginning of the 1900s relies on elements that can be found in West African music even today. Funk rhythmic structure, Blues microtones and Soul phrasing have an ancestry most likely tracing back to West African music. The student will learn to “hear” as a music historian and will be able to associate different styles of music both with the relevant social conditions of the time-period in which the style emerged as well as “hear” the auditory ancestry of particular styles. American popular music has given birth to many subgenres of music. A goal of this course is also for students to learn to hear auditory traditions in a style of music and to understand when and why socially certain styles emerged. |
MU 281 History of Rock & Roll | The History of Rock and Roll is designed to introduce students to the history of Rock and Roll (1940 – 1985). The focus will be on understanding the social realities and aesthetic questions that led to the emergence of a particular style of Rock and Roll at a particular time. For instance, the electronification of musical instruments, especially in the 1950s, made possible the appearance of new forms of music in the 1960s and beyond. If the electronics revolution never occurred, Rock and Roll never would have been developed – or at least it would be very different. Similarly, the lyrical content of much Rock and Roll can best be understood through looking at the social conditions of the time. Listening to the lyrics sung at the famous Woodstock festival, for example, one can identify values and life philosophy of the 60s generation. Therefore, this course introduces a music history but does so by highlighting why certain styles emerged in certain time periods. This course fulfills the Humanities General Education requirement. |