HUM 223: First day, syllabus, etc. [folk, popular, art]

Until I can make corrections to our syllabus on my faculty webpage, I'm putting our syllabus for HUM 223 on this blog. You can scroll down a couple of items, or click here to get it in a new window. We'll go over the syllabus in class. I know it's kind of like the air safety instructions you get from your flight attendants when a plane leaves the airport. Boring. But, like the safety information, you may need it sometime.

After that, we'll scroll back up to this post --

In class, we'll listen to singer and actor Harry Bellafonte give his impression of what the old New Orleans jazz number "When the Saints Go Marching In" might have sounded like it hadn't been for the African American influence in our music. Like "an old English madrigal," he said at a famous Carnegie Hall concert in 1959. Bellafone was joking, of course, but there's something to what he said. I want us to keep it in mind as we follow African American music from the cotton fields of Mississippi to Chicago, and from there to England, this semester.

For comparison's sake, we'll start by listening to a couple of madigrals. I posted them to this blog back in July. Link here to open a new window so you can follow the words. (By the way, if you haven't sung in a chorus that gives public performances before, you'll probably think these guys' facial expressions are over the top. But they're pretty standard.) Wikipedia has more information about the King's Singers, who have made a lifelong career of a cappella singing and know more than 2,000 songs, including the two we'll hear.

We'll spend the rest of the hour listening to a variety of music from British, European and African American musical traditions, both folk and popular, as well as classical. Or, as I sometimes like to call it, back-porch, front-porch and art music.

It's worth knowing because: (1) we'll be dealing with these concepts all semester; and (2) there's a very, very good chance it'll be on the midterm. (See? First day of class and you're already getting hints about what might be on the midterm.) I'm going to highlight some things I think will be especially important as we go along.

So, let's read through the rest of this blog. Then listen up! As we play selections from my flashdrive, be asking yourself: Where does this selection fit? Why? What makes it sound that way?

Here's how the late Daniel Kingman, composer and professor emeritus at California State University-Sacramento, described the three types of music in his book "American Music: A Panorama" (2nd ed., 2003):

Folk music. "... evolves within fairly close-knit homogeneous communities possessing a strong sense of group solidarity. [You'll probably hear me calling them "bounded communities," which means the same thing, because that's how I first learned the concept.] It is music known to and enjoyed by a large proportion of the community, who identify it as 'their music,' made by and for themselves. Many of the members of the community … perform the music themselves, with varying degrees of skill." Used to be rural and geographically isolated, but this is no longer always true. Conventional in style. Catchy melodies. Often easy to sing. Emphasis is on the song and not the singer. Other the music has a purpose in daily life beyond making pretty sounds -- e.g. work songs, dance tunes, religious music used in worship. In the past learned by oral tradition instead of written music, "but this must now include by extension radio, recordings, television, and film." Often the community is defined by ethnic identity. But not always -– e.g. protest songs, labor songs, other types of music sung by close-knit groups with a common purpose. A lot of sacred music started out as folk music.

Popular music. “… created for and enjoyed by the vast majority of the people, undefined by region. No specific ethnic background is requisite to fully appreciate or identify with it. It is primarily (though not exclusively) music for entertainment, and as such it makes only modest demands on its listeners’ musical knowledge and experience. It tends to adopt sounds from both folk and classical music that have become sufficiently familiar to the wider public.” Played by skilled professionals. [p. xvi] It's commercial, sold as sheet music in the old days, now radio, sound and video recordings. Is gospel popular music or folk music? Or both?

Art music, or classical music. Has been around longer than pop music, and includes music from earlier periods. Said Kingman: “As cultivated music it rewards a certain degree of musical experience in the listener, though its devotees are not defined by any intellectual, social, economic, regional, or racial classification.” I like calling it “art music,” as the 3rd edition does instead of classical), because it includes both classical music and a lot of jazz. However, art music often uses techniques and conventions borrowed from classical music -- symphonies, concertos, operas, requiem Masses, etc. The online Wikipedia encyclopedia says art music “primarily refers to classical traditions (including contemporary as well as historical classical music forms), focuses on formal styles, invites technical and detailed deconstruction and criticism, and demands focused attention from the listener.” It also tends to demand a very highly skilled, totally focused performer (most of us can't sing opera). So are the members of a good techno band like classical musicans? Are they art musicians? Folk? Popular? Or a little bit of all of above?