Journal Entries and Live Music Response in Music 416
Journal
Weekly informal written responses, 1-2 pages in length, double spaced, 12-point type, doc or docx format, are due each Tuesday by 8 am via our Canvas site. Sometimes I will provide writing prompts, other times you have the freedom to use this opportunity to reflect on the readings and listenings in preparation for class participation. Graduate students should challenge themselves to synthesize readings and listening together and/or to draw connections among topics in order to demonstrate the accumulation of perspectives and insights, or to show how new material invites further reflection. Journal responses will be graded high pass/pass/fail. You may take one week off from the assignment, or carry out all the weeks for extra credit. No late assignments will be accepted.
Some journal prompt examples:
- For your first journal entry, find a working definition of “historiography” and then browse texts in the ML197 section in the Mills Music Library. Identify two to compare. How are the texts alike or different? What’s familiar or unfamiliar to you? Most importantly, how are they telling the story or writing the history of music in the 20th century?
- Your second journal response continues our exploration of commercial recording and record labels. On reserve in the Mills Music Library are 5 commercially released LPs from two different labels popular c. 1940 through 1990: Blue Note and New World Records. I will assign you to one of the labels, and I encourage you to work together and share your ideas. Your written response, however, must be your own, although you may identify your collaborators.
Blue Note: Thomas, Mike, Megan, Emma, Carl, Nick, Noah, Nicole, Alex, Ranveer
New World: Courtney, David, Wade, Patrick, Talia, Anna, Lewis, Kenton, Christina, Jacob
In your response reflect upon:
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- the “personality” or identity of the label. How does it present itself? What kinds of language is used? Who is the intended audience? What do you learn from this primary source?
- reengage with the Filzen and Keightley articles. How are race and gender present—or absent? How has race shaped what’s been recorded on the label?
- your experience with the technology. Choose one of the LPs from your label (or be adventuresome and find another recording from the same label) to listen to and discuss your experience with this mode of recording technology.
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- Write a response to either the Ancient Voices of Childrenor Knoxville: Summer of 1915 identifying key musical features and what issues the work raised for you as part of the listening experience. (It’s perfectly fine to ask lots of questions rather than to try and provide answers.)
OR
Write a response to the assigned reading in which you summarize the reading in the first paragraph, identity and discuss a key point in the second paragraph, and then draw a connection in the reading to something else covered in class (readings, lectures, discussion, listening.) - Given our upcoming exploration of music and drama, do you have a favorite musical-dramatic work from childhood–perhaps an animated film or movie musical? Describe your relationship with the musico-dramatic work. Reflect on what role the music played in your experience as a listener/consumer. What role did the music play in telling the story? How did music shape the story or your experience?
OR
Return to either the Barber or Crumb works and identify and describe a key moment (or moments) where you find the relationships between the musical setting and the text especially interesting. What is the music doing for the text and how does the text shape the music? - Return to the 10 Learning Goals on the course syllabus. Where, specifically, do you feel you’ve made improvement? Where have you been able to make connections among the content of this course and your other music study and experiences?
OR
Thinking about the cumulative final exam, what would be good topics for essay questions? What are themes or ideas that have cut across works, composers and musical styles? Which composers/performers/musical genres would it be good to revisit for the listening response? If you could choose a great primary source to explore, what would it be?
Live Music Response
Given the course’s emphasis on current music and music-making, it is important to engage with local performances of musics created in the last two decades. I have identified some key opportunities below [omitted for space], and as a class, we will identify other options available. You may identify events of your own choice, but before attending, you must check with me; the “last two decades” criterion is hard and fast. You may not write on an event in which you’re taking part.
Your response should be 2-3 word processed pages in length and provide a description of the event and how it intersects with our ongoing class discussions and case studies. You may want to identify and discuss aspects you found particularly interesting, or compare it to works/practices studied in class. You should try to bring into your response issues we’ve discussed in class concerning reception, audience, tonality, contexts, networks and the realities of race, gender and national identities, etc. Feel free to talk to me about the event before or after. I encourage you to carry out this assignment collaboratively, attending with classmates and discussing your experiences together. Your written response, however, should be entirely your own. Responses are due up no later than two weeks following an event.
