Midterm Guide for Music 100 (Fall 2022)

The midterm (60 points total) for this semester consists of the following parts:

Part 1: Investigation of a Big Idea (15 points)
Part 2: Creative Project (15 points)
Part 3: For/Against (15 points)
Part 4: Imaginative Writing (15 points)

Due Dates: You must email me all four parts of your midterm exam by 11:59pm on October 25. Any materials delivered after that date will be considered late and points will be deducted (10% drop in grade per each day late, including weekend days).

Instructions for Part 1: Confronting Modernism and Technology

Country music is an “invented tradition.” It draws on the past but amplifies and distorts it through exaggerated accents, silly costumes, and modern musical innovations. And yet it presents a musical experience that purports to be old, even timeless. Early country music’s nostalgia for a time that never existed was fueled in part by that generation’s concerns and anxieties about modernity.

There is no single definition of modernity, but you may find this brief description useful:

“[Modernity derives from] the stresses and strains brought about… by the loss of belief in religion, the rise of our dependence on science and technology, the expansion of markets and the commodification brought about by capitalism, the growth of mass culture and its influence, the invasion of bureaucracy into private life, and changing beliefs about relationships between the sexes” (Christopher Butler, Modernism: A Very Short Introduction, 1). “[Modernity derives from] the stresses and strains caused… by the loss of faith in religion, the rise of our reliance on science and technology, the expansion of markets and commodification caused by capitalism, the growth of mass culture and its influence, the invasion of bureaucracy into private life, and changing beliefs about sex relationships” (Christopher Butler, Modernism: A Very Short Introduction, 1).

You may also find the Wikipedia page on Modernism useful as a reference.

Write a one- or two-page paper (with double-spaced text) or record a ten to fifteen-minute video essay exploring a specific case of popular music confronting modernity. You should draw from a single track, or at most a few related tracks. You are not required to use the description of modernity I’ve excerpted above; indeed, I encourage you to explore the topic and use whatever characterization of modernity appeals to you. You must cite your sources—direct quotes in a written paper should be in quotation marks and cited; direct quotes in a video essay should be prefaced with the word “quote” and followed by the words “end quote.” You should describe how the music engages with specific parameters of modernism—technological, psychological, cultural, and so on—and provide examples of how it reconciles/works out those confrontations. If writing a paper, you should use time stamps when specifying moments in a song (“at 2:35” instead of “at two minutes and thirty-five seconds”); if recording a video essay, ideally you should use an audio excerpt, or sing and/or play the excerpt.

Criteria for Grading: 1) Addressing a specific modernist issue; 2) Clarity with which musical examples confront the issue; 3) using specific timestamps 4) Plausibility of interpretation

Instructions for Part 2: Transformative Composition Assignment

Purpose: This assignment is designed to encourage students to transform old material into something new. The student will adapt folk music to a more modern idiom by using a model from popular music. I use the Grateful Dead as an example of a model, but the student may use any example so long as it fits the criteria outlined below.

Task: Popular music is full of examples of songs developed out of folk songs or relatively traditional material. The Grateful Dead, for example, would simply perform updated versions of folk tunes—see “Cold Rain and Snow,” “Dark Hollow,” “Peggy-O,” and “Jack-A-Roe.” At times, they created a new song that alluded to traditional material with respect to the lyrics or music or both. Particularly striking examples of this approach are “Stagger Lee,” “Dupree’s Diamond Blues,” “Throwing Stones,” “Deal,” “Casey Jones,” “Looks Like Rain,” and “Sugaree” (although the latter is not a traditional song but only a decade old at the time). For this assignment, do one of the following:
1) Take a folk song from the Cecil Sharp collection (available on our Blackboard Site under “Assignments”) and create a modern version of it (rock, r&b, jazz, hip hop, electronica, whatever) that you record and submit. You will alter the chords, rhythms, melodies, and words as appropriate for your genre, but it should still be a recognizable version of the source song;
2) Take a folk song from the Cecil Sharp collection and create new lyrics that are at least loosely based on the traditional lyrics (you don’t have to record anything). I leave it to you to decide what “based on” means in this context but you will have to justify your view in the write-up;
3) Write a new song based loosely on the melody and chords of a folk song from the Cecil Sharp collection. Your song can be in any style and genre. Record the song and submit.

No matter which of the three options you choose, write a 250-500-word description of what you were trying to achieve and how well you feel you achieved it—specify what you would do if you had more time. Be self-critical but also cut yourself some slack. As part of your write-up, you MUST cite an example of an artist adapting folk material in a modern manner or genre. Compare what you did to your model and be specific.

Criteria for Grading: 1) Aptness of Adaptation (does it fit the requirements laid out above); 2) Quality of Adaptation (does it represent a creative transformation of the material); 3) Write-up (does it clearly lay out the attempt and provide a critical point of view, as well as clearly citing a model in at least one song)

Instructions for Part 3: For/Against

Pick ONE of the following topics and write a paragraph (3-5 sentences) in support of and a paragraph (3-5 sentences) against the claim. Support your arguments with as many precise details as possible. You are in no way expected to personally endorse the arguments you make; however, you should use the critical and interpretive tools we have cultivated this semester to present your argument persuasively. You will be graded on the persuasiveness of those arguments.

1) Minstrelsy simply reinforced prejudices that were already in place, adding or subtracting nothing.
2) Jill Scott (a star of neo-soul, the epitome of 90s authenticity) appearing in insurance commercials demonstrates that there is no longer a distinction between the authentic and inauthentic.
3) True and False: “If it is art, it is not for the masses; if it is for the masses, it is not art.”
4) Music can represent the voice and/or identity of a nation (e.g., samba music and Brazil).
5) Printed sheet music is an accurate representation, or “image” of how music sounds.
6) Bluegrass music brought country music back to its roots.
7) Any “noise” can be musical.
8) The sentimentality of Stephen Foster songs fostered a culture that privileged sympathy.
9) The fact that so many “national” songs in the US derive from military music demonstrates that nationalism is bound up in anti-foreign sentiment and the threat of violence.
10) New Orleans is the indisputable origin of all real early jazz.
11) Although he started as an innovator, Louis Armstrong became an Uncle Tom-like character by appealing so readily to White tastes.
12) Crooners like Rudy Vallee challenged heteronormative understandings of what it means to be a man.

Criteria for Grading: 1) Plausibility of Arguments (they make logical sense and you support your claims with some kind of evidence—e.g. using connections between specific elements of classical music and ragtime for the first option); 2) Clarity of understanding of the form of music (or song) you are discussing (you say accurate and clear things about the music or performance); 3) Creativity and Style.

Instructions for Part 4: Imaginative Writing

Elvis Presley had a huge impact on the history of popular music and popular culture, and he remains the subject of adulation and controversy. One can approach his recorded output and his persona from innumerable angles. For this portion of the exam, you will pick ONE of the angles listed below. You will then write a minimum of one paragraph from that perspective. Longer discussions are encouraged; one paragraph is the minimum. Choose a SPECIFIC song to discuss. Feel free to quote sources. Provide citations at the end of the document for any sources you examined (whether you quoted from them or not).

Angles: 1) Feminist perspectives; 2) Racial perspectives; 3) Political (conservative or liberal) perspectives; 4) Economic perspectives; 5) His impact on “celebrity culture;” 6) Crossing or mixing genres; 7) Television or Movie appearances.

Criteria for Grading: 1) Clarity of critique (that is, you really provide a reasonable critique from that perspective); 2) Application to song (your critique reveals something interesting about the song); 3) Creativity and Style (you come up with a unique insight and communicate it well).