Springfield College in Illinois
Fall Semester 2007
http://www.sci.edu/classes/ellertsen/humanities/hum223syllabus.html
Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn. They teach you there's a boundary line to music. But, man, there's no boundary line to art. -- Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker
Final Exam – 1:30 p.m., Dec. 5, 2007
Below are three essay questions – one worth fifty (50) points out of 100, and two shorter essays worth 25 points each. Please write at least two to two and a half pages (500 words) on the 50-point essay and one page (250 words) each on the 25-point short essays. (This means you answer all three questions.) Use plenty of detail from your reading in the textbook, websites we have visited on the Internet, videos and handouts, as well as class discussion, to back up the points you make. Your grade will depend both on your analysis of the broad trends and the specific detail you cite in support of the points you make. This is an open-book exam. It is due at the regularly scheduled time for our exam, 1:30 p.m., Wednesday, Dec. 5.
1. Main essay (50 points). On July 5, 1954, Sam Phillips of the Sun record label in Memphis heard a group of white musicians jamming on “That’s All Right” by African-American blues artist Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup. It was like nothing he’d ever heard before, and he had them cut a record right away. According to Robert Palmer, author of Deep Blues, that record was “the beginning of something very, very big, something anybody could have predicted, nobody could have stopped and perhaps only one person, Sam Phillips, could have started.” It was also an example of cultural appropriation, or expropriation, which occurs when an art form crosses over from a minority to a majority culture. More occurred when white British musicians like Eric Clapton and the Rolling Stones adopted the blues style and made it their own in the 1960s and 70s. How well, in your opinion, does blues transcend cultural and racial boundaries? What was lost when the music crossed over cultural boundary lines? What was gained? Be specific.
2a. Self-reflective essay (25 points). What do you consider the most important thing you have you learned in HUM 223? Why do you say it is the most important? What did you learn that affected your taste in music for better or worse? Be specific. Consider what you knew at the beginning of the course, what you know now and what you learned. In grading this essay, I will evaluate the relevance of your discussion to the main goals and objectives of the course (in the syllabus posted at the address above); the detail you cite to support or illustrate your points; and the connections you make. So be specific.
2b. Short essay (25 points). Gospel singer Mahalia Jackson once said it made her “so sad and so sick” when she heard a gospel song performed in a nightclub “packed with white people who were laughing and eating and drinking and hand-clapping.” She added, “When they take gospel singing into nightclubs and put out ‘pop gospel’ records, they are blaspheming against the Holy Ghost.” Yet gospel is one of the most important sources of American popular music, and songs like “When the Saints Go Marching In” and “Amazing Grace” are beloved by religious and secular audiences alike. What is lost when the music crosses over to a secular audience? What is gained? Again, be specific. Always be specific.
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