HUM 223: 'Amazing Grace' reaction journal for Tuesday

If you missed class Thursday, you will need to get a copy of the video and watch it if you want to make up the assignment. You're looking for "Amazing Grace with Bill Moyers," but it may be hard to find. It appears to be out of print, and I'm not sure Becker Library has a copy. So if you can't watch the video, consider it as an opportunity to meditate on what I meant when I said in the syllabus, "... in-class work, by its very nature, cannot be made up. Class attendance will directly impact your final grade."

Due Tuesday: Write a 1.5 to 2- page reaction paper on Bill Moyers' TV special "Amazing Grace." I prefer to get papers typed, doublespaced (easier to read that way) in 12pt type ... New Times Roman or any other typeface that's "plain vanilla" and easy to read. This will be a graded paper, but it's a "journal," which means in my classes that it's part of your class participation grade rather than an announced writing assignment. I am much more interested in what you say than in how you say it. In other words, I want you to write as well as you can, but I'm not going to grade you on grammar per se.

As we watch the video, we'll see people from different walks of life singing the music, including a family reunion in the Kentucky mountains, a youth choir in New York City, convicts, popular musicians, opera singers. I'll post some of the names:

• Jean Ritchie, folk singer, and relatives at a family renuion in rural Kentucky.
  
• Jessie Norman, opera singer who learned the song growing up in a Baptist church.
  
• Judy Collins, folk singer of the 1970s.
  
• Hugh McGraw, shape-note Sacred Harp singer of Georgia.
  
• Dewey Williams, 91, and family of rural Alabama
  
• Johnny Cash and prisoners in Huntsville Prison in Texas
  
• Walter Turnbull, director, Boys Choir of Harlem
  
• Marlon Williams, gospel singer, who sang at the end of the video

Take notes as you watch. Ask yourself: How many different types of people are featured? How do they relate to the song? What, specifically, do they get out of it? How do you react to their singing? What do you learn about music as you listen to all these different people? What do you learn about yourself? Here are three questions to ask yourself. You've seen them before, and you'll see 'em again:

1. What about this piece of music and/or performance stands out in my mind?
2. What in my background, values, needs and interests makes me react that way?
3. What specific things about the performance trigger that reaction?

You'll also find some tips in Sunday's blog post headlined HUM 223: Writing about music, writing about 'Amazing Grace' ... I'll repeat them here, too.

Robert M. Seiler of the University of Calgary in Canada suggests that when his students write about music, they actively listen for the sound of vocals or instrumentals, and the “dynamics or the intensity of the sound, in terms of loudness, uniformity, and change.” He also suggests they listen for:

a. the movement of the piece, i.e., concentrate on its rhythm, meter, and tempo,

b. the pitch, i.e., in terms of its order and melody, and

c. the structure of the piece, i.e., its logic, design, and texture.

Seiler’s entire tip sheet is available at http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~rseiler/music.htm -- his examples are from classical music, but his suggestions work for blues, gospel, jazz, rock or hip hop, too. They’ll work for "Amazing Grace," too.