Diverse Cultures and their Musics Fall 2023

    Time for some  serious  bloggin'.  For this blog, rather than exploring the way music intersects with some other aspect of society, you're going to select a unique topic, do some research on it, and create a blog post to teach your classmates about it. Here's the catch: your Big Blog no. 1 needs to be on a genre (or sub-genre) of American Roots Music. One of the unique aspects of American-born musics is that they inevitably well up from the bottom rungs of society before spreading across the globe. As we'll discuss, the Blues were born from the very poorest of Southern American society and, by birthing such genres as Rock, Country, and R&B, have basically conquered the world. This, in essence, is what American Roots music is--kinds of music that were born on American soil, musics that are almost always syncretic in nature and initially connected to underprivileged communities.  So, first, select your specific type of American Roots to research ...

This blog is going to be a lot like the previous one, but this time you'll be exploring the intersection of music and gender. We've already noticed several gender norms in the cultures we've studied--in Native American music, dances are generally segregated by gender, with men dancing the more flamboyant dances. In the music of the Andes, men generally play the harp, but often they'll be accompanying a woman who might be both singing and playing the part of the  golpeador.  And we've seen how gender norms can change over time--the Gambia has its first professional female kora player in Sona Jobarteh, and young women are starting to be seen at Native American drums.  I'm sure that, if you stop to think about it, you've noticed gender expectations in the music you've experienced. Have different genders listened to different types of music, or  been expected  to listen to different types of music? Within the style of music that you like to listen to, does t...