HUM 223: Dancing about architecture ... about writing ... about music ... is really about listening (WHICH LEADS UP TO TUESDAY'S ASSIGNMENT)

Several days ago, I posted a link to a tip sheet on "Writing About Music" by Robert M. Seiler of the University of Calgary in Canada. He suggests it's all about listening, and he says something that makes me sit up and, well, sit up and listen ... 'cause I know he's talking about me. Seiler: "Many of us have acquired some bad habits - like listening to music as a background to other activities. In this way, according to [French classical piano player] Eric Satie, we turn music into wall-paper or furniture."

Ouch. I do that.

Nothing against wallpaper or furniture. But to really get into music, Seilert says we've got to listen ... pay attention to it. (I guess if I were really into wallpaper, I could listen to that, too. But let's not go there.) What to listen for? Seiler tells his students at Calgary that when they 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.

Let's go through Seiler’s entire tip sheet. He has lots of suggestions, and you may find some you especially like. We all react differently, especially to instrumental music, so I don't mind it if we're all over the map. And I don't expect all of you all to agree with me. But I especially like it when he quotes American composer Aaron Copeland and says "music expresses serenity or exuberance, regret or triumph, fury or delight. Music expresses these moods, and many others, in a variety of subtle shadings and differences. It may even express a state of meaning for which there exists no adequate phrase in any language." I think Seiler's suggestions will help you when you go to write about music. I know I like to go back to them when I'm doing my own articles.

Then let's take a trial run ...

We'll listen to Sparky and Rhonda Rucker singing "C.C. Rider at a house party in Chattanooga, Tenn. (They're the couple who will do the Prairie Grapevine concert in Springfield later this month.) It's an old blues standard - actually a "bad man" song that probably goes back a lot farther than blues. As you listen, skim-read Seiler's tip sheet and see which of his suggestions work for you. Take them down, so we can talk about it in class for a while. No "right" answers. But what works for you may work for some of your classmates.

And then, the main assignment



In 1966 Bruce Springsteen toured the U.S. and Europe, performing American roots standards with a group he called the Sessions Band. In this version of the old jazz standard "When the Saints Go Marching In," he switched off the lead vocal with Patti Scialfa and Marc Thompson. "The Saints" has a beloved place in American popular culture as a rowdy, up-tempo Dixieland jazz song, but its roots are in gospel music and its words are from the Book of Revelations in the Bible. Do Springsteen and the Sessions Band succeed in going back to those roots? Does it work for you? Why? Or, why not?



Write a two- to four-page reaction paper on Springsteen's performance with the Sessions Band of "The Saints." Here are those three questions again. (They never go away!)

1. What about this piece of music and/or performance stands out in my mind?
2. What in my background, values, taste and interests makes me react that way?
3. What specific things about the performance trigger that reaction? [These will be the things Copeland mentions in Seiler's tip sheet.]

The questions are adapted from a kind of assignment you may have written in English or language arts classes, but they're the best way I know of staying on track when you write a response paper to music, too, or any other work of art.

This paper is a journal -- i.e. it's not a formal English-class type paper -- and I consider it part of your class participation grade rather than a formal writing assignment. That means I'm more interested in what you say, in other words the content, than I am in how you say it, i.e. the grammar and punctuation. Write as well as you can, but don't freeze up over grammar.