MUSC 3101 Music in Global America Fall 2020

Course website: https://musc3101fall2020.commons.gc.cuny.edu
Tuesdays & Thursdays
11 AM-12:15 PM @ Zoom
Instructor: Michelle Aeojin Yom
myom@gradcenter.cuny.edu
Office hours via Zoom by appointment.

Description
This course will focus on the transnational nature of American vernacular music. The diaspora of folk and popular music traditions to the U.S. from Africa, Europe, Latin America, and the Caribbean will be traced historically. The survival, transformation, and hybridization of those musical practices in diverse U.S. ethnic and cultural communities, as well as the impact those musical practices had on our national popular music, will be analyzed. The relationship of musical practice to the construction of identity among select U.S. ethnic/cultural groups will be considered. And finally, the spread of U.S. musical practices back out across the globe, driven by mass media and the internet, and the interaction of those U.S. styles with local music cultures around the world will be explored.

Music in Global America will draw on the growing body of contemporary musicology and transnational American literature that seeks to view artistic practice and cultural identity through a global lens that focuses on immigration, migration, and contemporary channels of transnational communication. This global perspective reorients our thinking about the nature of “American” music by focusing on the complex flow of diverse musical practices into and out of the U.S. In particular, we will study:

– Jewish Klezmer
– Irish Folk and Popular
– Mexican Nortena
– Nuyorican Salsa
– West Indian Carnival/Calypso
– African American Gospel
– Black Music
– Punjabi Bhangra Beat
– Global Hip Hop

 

Summary
The transnational roots of vernacular music traditions in the U.S., particularly in New York City. The diaspora of folk and popular styles from Africa, Europe, Latin America, and the Caribbean, and Asia, and the transformation and hybridization of those music styles in diverse U.S. ethnic and cultural communities. Loops of ongoing transnational interaction between contemporary U.S. music styles and urban musics around the world.

Themes
1) The diaspora of folk and popular music traditions to the U.S. from Africa, Europe, Latin America, and the Caribbean.
2) The survival, transformation, and hybridization of those musical practices in diverse U.S. ethnic and cultural communities, as well as the impact those musical practices had on our national popular music.
3)  The relationship of musical practice to the construction of identity among select U.S. ethnic/cultural groups.
4)  The spread of U.S. musical practices back out across the globe.

Course Requirements
This is a course based on reading and writing. By the end of the course, you will have read around twenty-five articles and book chapters, and composed around 15-20 pages of your writing. There are no quizzes or exams. Attendance is not mandatory. Reading assignments are listed on the date that they are due. We will meet during regular class times on Zoom to review and discuss the readings. All meetings will be recorded and uploaded to the course website. The writing assignments are:

 

9/15 Assignment 1- Music Culture writing exercise 10%
10/8 Assignment 2 – Paper on Black Music and Cecil Taylor 20%
10/29 Assignment 3- Paper on Heritage Music and Cultural Identity 20%
11/19 Assignment 4 – Paper on Micromusic and Cultural Identity 20%
12/15 Assignment 5 – Paper on Global Hip Hop 30%
(See instructions below.)

Grade Scale

A+	97-100
A	93-96
A-	90-92
B+	87-89
B	83-86
B-	80-82
C+	77-79
C	73-76
C-	70-72
D+	67-69
D	60-66
F	0-59

 

Required Text
“MUSC 3101 – Music in Global America” Course Packet. Download here.

Important Note
Students who participate in this class with their camera on or use a profile image are agreeing to have their video or image recorded solely for the purpose of creating a record for students enrolled in the class to refer to, including those enrolled students who are unable to attend live. If you are unwilling to consent to have your profile or video image recorded, be sure to keep your camera off and do not use a profile image. Likewise, students who un-mute during class and participate orally are agreeing to have their voices recorded. If you are not willing to consent to have your voice recorded during class, you will need to keep your mute button activated and communicate exclusively using the “chat” feature, which allows students to type questions and comments live.

Course Schedule
Music In Global America
Week 1: What is music in global America?
-Integrating  U.S. migration with music and culture.
-The problem of the “color-line” as a global problem

8/27 Course overview, geographic scope, syllabus, assignments, expectations, etc.

9/1 W. E. B. Du Bois, excerpts from The Souls of Black Folk; Nahum Dimitri Chandler, X: The Problem of the Negro as a Problem for Thought, Toward an African Future–of the Limit of World; & Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia

The music culture, the globalization, and American popular culture
Week 2: What is music? What is culture? What is globalization?
-Theories of cultural globalization, diaspora, and cultural hybridity.
-New technologies and the movement of mediated music around the world.
-Music and cultural boundary crossings.

9/3 Mark Slobin & Jeff Todd Titon (1992), World of Music, Chapt. 1: “The Music-Culture as a World of Music,” 1-15.

9/8 Lane Crothers (2013), Globalization and American Popular Culture, 17-32.

African Diaspora I: the Southern U.S.
Weeks 3:
-The emergence of 18th and 19th-century African-American slave work songs and spirituals; the evolution of early 20th-century gospel.

9/10 Eileen Southern (1997), The Music of Black Americans, Chapt. 1: “The African Legacy,” (3-22).

9/15 Samuel A. Floyd, Jr. (1995), The Power of Black Music, Chapt. 2: “Transformations,” (35-57).

9/15 MUSIC CULTURE WRITING EXERCISE DUE (Assignment 1)

Black Gospel, Black Music
Weeks 4:
-The process of musical syncretism between African and European forms of expression.
-Types of oral/aural transmission

9/17 Ray Allen (1991), Singing in the Spirit, Chapt. 4: “Shouting the Church: Quartet Performance Strategies,” 97-139.

9/22 Michelle Yom (2020), “‘Getting the Layers Going: Karen Borca’s Big Band at ‘Unit Structures: The Art of Cecil Taylor’,” American Music Review, Vol. 49, Issue 2, (28-32).

African Diaspora II: Afro-Caribbean Carnival in Trinidad and Brooklyn
Weeks 5:
-Afro-Caribbean music/dance/costuming traditions in 19th century Trinidad.
-The Caribbean diaspora and the emergence of modern Carnival in Harlem and Brooklyn.
-Carnival, resistance, and cultural identity.

9/24 Ray Allen & Lois Wilcken (1998), Island Sounds in the Global City, Introduction: “Island Sounds in the Global City,” 1-6.

10/1 Donald Hill (1998), “I am Happy Just to Be in This Sweet Land of Liberty”: The New York City Calypso Craze of the 1930s and 1940s, 74-91.

European Transplants
Weeks 6:
-The emergence of Irish-American dance and vaudeville traditions; Jewish-American klezmer and Yiddish Theater.
-The migration of 18th and 19th-century folk music traditions from select European settings to the US.

10/6 Rebecca S. Miller (1988), “‘Our Own Little Isle’: Irish Traditional Music in New York,” New York Folk Lore, Vol XIV, Nos. 3-4, (101-113).

10/8 Mark Slobin (2003), Fiddler on the Move, Chapt. 1: “Under the Klezmer Umbrella,” (1-9).

Optional:
Henry Sapoznik (1997), “Klezmer Music: The First One Thousand Years,” Music of Multicultural America, (49-70).

10/8 BLACK MUSIC/CECIL TAYLOR PAPER DUE (Assignment 2)

Theory of heritage and cultural revival
Weeks 7:
-Heritage as an idea and form of social function.

10/13 Mark Slobin (2003), Fiddler on the Move, Chapt. 2: “Klezmer as a Heritage Music,” (11-35).

10/15 Slobin, continued.

The Latin Tinge
Weeks 8 & 9:
-The emergence of Musica Norteno on the Texas/Mexican border.
-Nuyorican mambo and salsa in New York City and around the world.
-Crossing geographic and cultural borders.
-Theories of cultural hybridity and identity in Latin America and in the diaspora.

10/20 Cathy Ragland (2001), Música Norteña: Mexican Migrants Creating a Nation between Nations, Introduction (1-6, 152-153, 166-182).

10/22 Deborah Pacini Hernandez (2010), Oye Como Va!: Hybridity and Identity in Latino Popular Music, Introduction (1-14).

10/27 Peter Manuel (1995), Caribbean Currents: Caribbean Music from Rumba to Reggae, Chapt 4: “Salsa and Beyond,” (72-89).

10/29 Shuhei Hosokawa (2002), “Salsa No Tiene Fronteras: Orquesta de la Luz and the Globalization of Popular Music,” Situating Salsa, Ed. Lise Waxer, (289-311).

10/29 HERITAGE MUSIC AND IDENTITY PAPER DUE (Assignment 3)

Hip Hop and the Globalization of American Popular Culture
Weeks 10-14
-The transnational roots of Hip Hop in the South Bronx.
-The globalization of hip hop in Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe, Africa, and Asia.

11/3 Robin D. G. Kelley (2006), The Vinyl Ain’t Final, Forward (xi-xvi).

Tony Mitchell (2001), Global Noise, Introduction: “Another Root-Hip Hop outside the USA,” (1-12).

11/5 Tricia Rose (1994), “Flow, Layering, and Rupture in Postindustrial New York,” Rap Music, (191-219).

11/10 Rose, continued.

11/12 Jillian M. Báez, “‘En mi imperio’: Competing discourses of agency in Ivy Queen’s reggaetón,” CENTRO Journal, Vol 13 No. 11, (63-81).

11/17 Zine Magubane (2006), “Globalization and Gangster Rap: Hip Hop in the Post-Apartheid City,” The Vinyl Ain’t Final, (208-229).

11/19 Magubane, continued.

11/19 MICROMUSIC MUSIC AND IDENTITY PAPER DUE (Assignment 4)

11/24 Melissa Ursula Dawn Goldsmith & Anthony J. Fonseca (2013), “Bhangra-Beat and Hip-Hop: Hyphenated Musical Cultures, Hybridized Music,” Crossing Traditions: American Popular Music in Local and Global Contexts, Ed. Babacar M’Baye & Alexander Charles Oliver Hall, (157-174).

12/1 Goldsmith & Fonseca, continued.

12/3 Eun-Young Jung (2014), “Transnational Migrations and YouTube Sensations: Korean Americans, Popular Music, and Social Media,” Ethnomusicology, Vol. 58, No. 1, (54-82).

12/8 Jung, continued.

12/15 GLOBAL HIP HOP PAPER DUE (Assignment 5)

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For all assignments, pay close attention to style, grammar, and spelling. Your paper will be graded on style as well as the content. Be sure to proofread your paper carefully. Limit your direct quotations, and do not plagiarize. Most importantly, make an argument. After careful consideration of what others have said about the topic, what do you want to say? What was on your mind that did not get voiced in class? What do you want me, your reader, to understand? I am asking you to make an intellectual contribution. Use anecdotal references strategically. Engage with the authors in the course packet (and elsewhere) and cite them to support your thesis. Or, critique the texts according to your view and interest. Make the course packet work for you. Closely analyze music and artists and use them as examples or evidence of your argument. I am mainly looking to see that you have a thorough understanding of the readings and can resource them to creatively and convincingly make an argument. Excellent papers may be given an opportunity to be presented in class for further discussion.

Assignment 1 – Music Culture Exercise – 500 words – Due 9/15

Use Titon and Slobin’s model of music-culture to analyze one of the three music performance documentation videos listed below. Watch the video, then:

– Describe the social setting of the music.
– Describe the ensemble set up and instrumentation.
– Describe the basic social organization of the performance including the interaction between the performers and audience; how is the audience reacting to the music?
– Construct a brief timeline of the linear form of the performance (opening theme, vocal verse 1, vocal chorus, verse 2, chorus, trumpet solo, etc.)
– Analyze the music-culture by applying Titon & Slobin’s model of music-culture.
– Based on your analysis, speculate on the “global” or “transnational” nature of your music culture.
What are the roots of this music and how did it come to the U.S.? How has it moved out from the U.S. to other corners of the globe? Consult the respective articles in your course packet for the background. Organize your paper as you wish but make sure you demonstrate all listed items above in the paper.

1) Manny Oquendo Y Conjunto Libre (Nuyorican Salsa) – “Elena Elena” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dwvxvdf8OBs&list=PLE1002C840BEE578D&index=13&feature=plpp_video

2) Frank London & Lorin Sklamberg (Jewish Klezmer Music) – “Tsuker-zis @ Shalom on Szeroka Street 2011” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfiLTozqsko

3) Black Stalin (West Indian Soca) – “Black Man Feeling to Party” (from 0:00-3:00) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zOqmG1Sfck&list=PLE1002C840BEE578D&index=6&feature=plpp

Assignment 2– Black Music and Cecil Taylor – 750-1000 words – Due 10/8

How is Taylor’s music transmitted, and what qualities does it retain from the earliest generation of African-American music? Trace the historical lineage Taylor’s music and use Titon & Slobin’s model of music-culture and their definitions of memory, community, performance, and affect in order to discuss and correlate those aspects in Taylor’s music to its origin. Make sure to cite Southern, Floyd Jr., Yom, and at least one article in the Cecil Taylor folder to build your argument. Close your essay with a discussion of Taylor’s music as an example of 21st-century African diasporic music-culture.

Assignment 3– Heritage Music and Cultural Identity – 750-1000 words – Due 10/29

Define the term “heritage music” as discussed in class and in the Slobin reading. How are nationalism, diaspora, and transnationalism essential components of the heritage music complex? Examine Jewish klezmer music and traditional Irish (Celtic) music in the U.S. as examples of heritage musics. Your answer should explore the development and revival of these styles here in the U.S. as well as their importance for Irish and Jewish-Americans. Give specific examples of artists who have helped establish klezmer and Irish music as forms of U.S. heritage music.

Assignment 4– Micromusics and Cultural Identity – 750-1000 words – Due 11/19

Define the term “micromusic” as discussed in class and in the Slobin reading. How can we understand Nuyorican salsa and Nortena/Tejano conjunto music as styles of U.S. micromusics? Your answer should recount the development of salsa and Nortena/Tejano conjunto music by particular “ethnic” groups inside and outside the continental U.S. Give specific examples of artists involved with salsa and Nortena/Tejano conjunto music and the themes of their songs (one artist/song for each style). Close your essay by discussing the transnational dimensions of each style—how have these musics crossed international borders?

Assignment 5 – Global Hip Hop and Rap Music – 1000-1250 words – Due 12/15

According to cultural theorists Robin Kelley (in The Vinyl Ain’t Final) and Tony Mitchell (in Global Noise), how has African American (U.S.) based rap music incorporated elements of local cultures as it spreads around the world? Do you agree with Mitchell that rap has become “a vehicle for global youth affiliation” that provides a forum for global youth protest allowing rap artists to make “political statements about local racial, sexual, employment, and class issues”?

Or do you think that most global rap is just party music that tends to reinforce the values of violence, material greed, and anti-female/LGBTQ sentiments (that are the values associated with commercial U.S. gangster rap)?

Choose a rapper/rap group who operates primarily outside the U.S. Review their history, and how they do or do not conform to the Kelley/Mitchell model. Be sure to analyze the lyrics, the music (the underlying mix), and images if a video is available. Center your analysis on at least one of their rap songs that you have transcribed and translated into English. Include your lyrical transcription in an appendix to your paper, and a link to YouTube or a similar website for me to hear/see the rap song you are analyzing.