MUS-201 American Musical Traditions † *

This course is intended to help students think critically and creatively about music, with a focus on a range of American musical traditions-- popular as well as classical. Attention will be paid to the global roots (most notably European, African, and Latin American musical traditions) and variety of styles and forms of American music (minstrelsy, tin pan alley, musical theater, jazz, blues, folk and bluegrass, rock, rap, hip-hop), and to the influence of technology and mass media on the development of music within the United States from Stephen Foster to Gershwin to Ellington, from Elvis to a remarkably diverse contemporary musical landscape.