Contents

MUSC 107 American Popular Music

Open to all interested students, this course offers a panoramic view of the history of American popular music from the mid 1800's to the present. Upon completion of this course, the student will be able to identify and discuss each of the following aspects of American popular music: specific styles and style periods, pivotal compositions and composers, ethnic traditions which have been major contributors in the development and evolution of popular music, song forms and their contribution to style period development, influences on American history, and historical influences on popular music.

Credits

3

Hours Weekly

3

Course Objectives

  1. 1. Recognize and identify specific styles and style periods.
  2. 2. Identify specific groups and/or individuals and their contributions to pop music.
  3. 3. Incorporate innovation, risk-taking, and creativity into analysis and problem-solving methods by analyzing song forms and discussing their importance to the development of style periods.
  4. 4. Pose and address questions related to the confluence of creative and humanistic expression with social and cultural contexts by explaining how history and world events helped to shape pop music and vice versa.
  5. 5. Recognize and discuss the pivotal compositions of pop music history.
  6. 6. Show the similarities and differences among the major artists of each music period.
  7. 7. Assess, reflect on, and critically analyze the role of popular music in illuminating the human condition by discussing the worldwide ramifications of the popularity of certain pivotal music artists, i.e., Louis Armstrong, Frank Sinatra, Elvis, and the Beatles.
  8. 8. Identify and apply critical theories and concepts related to enduring and contemporary issues of aesthetics and creativity by discussing the importance of technology on popular music.
  9. 9. Identify and define specific terms relative to major style periods, i.e., blues, jazz, swing, pop, rock, funk.
  10. 10. Analyze one specific composition from each major style period deemed to be a “classic” of that genre.

Course Objectives

  1. 1. Recognize and identify specific styles and style periods.
  2. 2. Identify specific groups and/or individuals and their contributions to pop music.
  3. 3. Incorporate innovation, risk-taking, and creativity into analysis and problem-solving methods by analyzing song forms and discussing their importance to the development of style periods.
  4. 4. Pose and address questions related to the confluence of creative and humanistic expression with social and cultural contexts by explaining how history and world events helped to shape pop music and vice versa.
  5. 5. Recognize and discuss the pivotal compositions of pop music history.
  6. 6. Show the similarities and differences among the major artists of each music period.
  7. 7. Assess, reflect on, and critically analyze the role of popular music in illuminating the human condition by discussing the worldwide ramifications of the popularity of certain pivotal music artists, i.e., Louis Armstrong, Frank Sinatra, Elvis, and the Beatles.
  8. 8. Identify and apply critical theories and concepts related to enduring and contemporary issues of aesthetics and creativity by discussing the importance of technology on popular music.
  9. 9. Identify and define specific terms relative to major style periods, i.e., blues, jazz, swing, pop, rock, funk.
  10. 10. Analyze one specific composition from each major style period deemed to be a “classic” of that genre.