Welcome to my Blog for Music History: 333 The first week and a half we began to graze the surface of the early history behind popular music.
When I saw this class as a liberal studies elective, I became intrigued and wanted to know more of what we would be learning. After I became aware that it would covering topics about popular music from 1945- present day, I thought it would be the right class for me to learn something completely new for a change. It is good to get out of your comfort zone every once and I saw this as an opportunity to switch it up a little bit. I have little to zero experience with music. I mean zero! The most musical experience I have is from elementary music classes, chorus, and middle school music classes. I have never learned to play an instrument. I guess some of has to do with the social environment I grew up in, neither my mother, father, sister or close friends played instruments, and if they did while they were inside at they’re piano lesson, I was outside riding my bike or playing sports. I love listening to the radio, cd’s and going to concerts. It is not that I do not enjoy the music, I actually love and admire it. There is a lot of time, discipline, passion and dedication that goes into creating/selling music.
Walking into the first class it was an understatement to say that I was nervous. I had no idea what to expect, and did not recognize a single face in the class. Dr. Baumer, our professor did an excellent job going over the basics elements of music such as the beat, tempo, meter, rhythm, accents, melody, harmony, form, verse, chorus, style and pitch. These all pretty basic terms, but for me it was completely foreign. We began to talk about Pre-popular music and the influence of african americans made on the music industry. Most of these topics are pre 1945 but necessary to cover in order to fully understand the origin of most popular music we here today and throughout history. Dance music: folk dances, waltz, polka, quadrille and 2 step (March). These are all examples of pre history dance music. Music Theater: Opera, vaudeville, music theater, minstrelsy all forms of musical theater. Next we started talking about minstrelsy. This is a popular stage entertainment featuring songs, dances and comic dialogue in highly conventional patterns. At this time, African Americans were played by white people with black face paint, commonly known as “blackface”. By the early to mid 19th century this was commonly seen as a form of entertainment for whites. One famous minstrelsy actors covered in class was Thomas Dartmouth Rice. He was most famously popular for his character Jim Crow. Most people today have heard of Jim Crow, he has to deal with segregation in the U.S. he is a made up character that is considered offensive.
Overall, up to this point I enjoy the class. There is a lot of information to take in, but it is all interesting.