UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO-BOULDER
College of Music
MUSC 5832: Studies in American Music
MUSC 6822: Advance Studies in African American
Music
Fall 2006
Meeting Times: Fri 9:00 – 11:50 am Room: MUS N285
Instructor: Dr. Kwasi Ampene Phone: 303-492-6439
E-mail: Kwasi.ampene@colorado.edu Office Hours: Friday 12-2:00 pm
Location: MUS N285
Course Description
Based on a fundamentally ethnomusicological perspective, Advance Studies in African American Music shall examine the chronological development of specific genres including the spirituals, gospel, blues, R&B, soul, funk, jazz, and rap/hip-hop. Additionally, we shall examine the development of black musical theater including Broadway musicals and black music in the Harlem Renaissance. This course will also recognize the contributions of African Americans who compose in the Western European ³classical² traditions.
Additional topics include theories and ideologies of gender. That is, strategies of resistance and accommodation and how AA women confront and overcome major obstacles in the male-dominated music industry. Turning on to ³mass mediation,² we shall interrogate politics of the music industry in defining the creative process and the marketing of creative products of African Americans. Finally, ³musical agency² shall examine modes of resistance African Americans have utilized from the antebellum period to the present. Lectures will be supplemented with demonstrations, films/videos, audio recordings, guest lectures and artists.
Objectives
The objectives of the course are (1) To define
both the
distinctive character of individual genres of AA music and the cultural
threads
that link one genre with another; (2) To develop a deeper understanding
of
Black musical and cultural expressions; (3) To create an awareness of
styles
and forms which characterize major periods in African American music,
and (4)
To develop an understanding of how the music was and is performed
through a
study of various performers and composers.
