Suppose I wanted to take a course entitled "History of Music".  Like History
of Art, it could be divided by time periods, and would start at a very early
time, and progressively lead me through to, say, 2001.  

Throughout the course, the professors would use recordings of the music (like
slides of art) to demonstrate the points they were making, show connections
and influences, and otherwise walk me through the development of American 21st
century music.

If you were developing this course, where would you start, and what music
would you include as an example?  How would it unfold?  What music would
you play for each lecture?  Assume that you have about 25 3 hour segments,
or the equivalent of two semesters of my attention.  Also assume total
musical naivete on the part of your students.

39 responses total.

Actually, Pioneer offers a Humanities course which includes Music History.
If I remember correctly, they started the musical part  seriously with
Gregorian chants, although we did hear some recordings of "What we think the
music might have sounded like".

Interesting.  Has anyone every tried to recreate "Greek" or "Roman" music?

We have a CD which claims to be most of what's available from ancient
Greece, and the one small fragment that's available from Rome.  
(Or maybe I have it backwards.)
Recreating anything before the development of notation which we can 
read today is somewhat speculative, I would think.
 
cmcgee sure likes the big questions.  :)  In the 20th century, the 
two key American players in the first half of the century are probably
Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, but I don't listen to Armstrong much
and I listen to Ellington all the time.  For the early stuff I would 
look for an RCA-label compilation covering the late 1930s and early 1940s.
I think the most recent such one was called "Beyond Category," but 
RCA spiffs up their Ellington material and reissues it every few
years.

Do not - I repeat, do NOT - miss the opportunity to make it a history of music
OF THE WORLD course!  You need Asian music covered.  Freak out on some Tibetan
monk chants!  Get the idea?  ;-)

True....Humanitites was History of the Western World.

And even then, they tend to skip over a lot of history that deserves attention
more, like the ancient cites, more on egypt, more on ancient pre-greecian
medeteranian civilizations...  They tended to focus more on what they thought
you needed to get out of it, rather than going through everything.  I hated
that class, but when I got to college, I loved it.  Had amazing amounts of
fun and learned things.

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        Several species of small furry animals gathered together grooving with
a Pict should be required headphone listening in History of Music class.

YES!!  Yanno, until I actually saw the album with that song name on it, I
didn't believe it existed...I thought everyone was pulling my leg about it...

And you even left out a few words from the title.....:)

We are *not* helping Colleen out here.

Maybe not, but at least we are amusing ourselves....:)

Amusing me too. :-)

Well, I've started by listening to all the chants and drums I can find: 
Hawaiian, Hindu, and Hildegard von Bingen.  

Two particularly on topic (Western music history) CDs were
Mysteria: Gregorian Chants by Chanticleer
Canticles of Ecstasy, Hildegard von Bingen.  Recorded by Sequentia

Remembering that I'm working with what the A2 library has to offer
(interlibrary loan doesn't work for CDs) and what locals are willing to
lend me,  what else from that time period (or earlier) should I listen
to?

For performers, you might look for the women's quartet Anonymous 4,
who are very popular, the library should have something, and the 
Tallis Scholars, though their period might be later.  I need to get 
Leslie to look at this item, she knows lots more about early music
than I do.

                                        in a cave

The text that all freshman music majors are required to read is
"A History of Western Music," by Donald Grout.  It's considered
kind of a snooze, but should give you an idea of what composers
to listen too.  The library probably has it.  I would lend you my
1970s edition if I had any idea where it was.

Some pre-Bach composers you might try:  Monteverdi (madrigals,
opera, sacred choral music), Palestrina (sacred choral music),
Heinrich Schuetz (usually there's an umlaut over the u, but I
don't know how to do that here, so I stuck in the e), 
Andrea and Giovanni Gabrielli, Tomas Luis de Victoria, Orlando
di Lasso, Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, Orlando Gibbons, Guillaume
Dufay, Machaut.  Those last two guys are Medieval, the prior
ones are mostly Renaissance.  Other Baroque guys to look at besides
Bach: Vivaldi, Arcangelo Corelli, Alessandro Scarlatti (opera),
Domenico Scarlatti (A.S.'s son -- mostly harpsichord music).
There are lots more.  This is off the top of my head, and leans
in the direction of my particular preferences.

This is now linked to the classical conf as #59.

Hey, I didn't know there was a classical conf.  I'll go look. Thanks Leslie.

I have 'Music in Europe and the United States, a History'  Edith Borroff,
Eastern Michigan University, 1971, which is aimed at beginners without being
patronizing, and is information and interesting to read.  More stress than
most music history books on Native American and African American music.  The
library book sale had two used copies for $1 each.   Every chapter ends with
a summary of the life and work of some important composers of the period.
An easy way to get an idea of what key works sounded like is to go online and
listen to MIDI files.  Search on MIDI and classical and free.  Some sound like
music boxes but some are quite well done.  If you don't have a sound card,
there is some DOS software that will play the music on your PC speaker (sounds
pretty bad, but it gives you some idea of the music).

(Some day, I have to find a recording of the Tallis Canon.)

Such a beautiful piece.  I remember playing it for a chamber group a million
years ago.  I think I can still remember the fingerings, even though I haven't
played in about 12 years.

I'm surprised, Megan.  You don't look a day over a thousand.
8-{)]

My PC Speaker software only plays WAV files, not MIDI - sorry.

Todd Mundt had an excellent program yesterday featuring UMich music 
professor Richard Crawford, who has a new book out, AMERICA'S MUSICAL
LIFE.  Nearly 1000 pages, $45, woog.  There are some tempting reviews
at amazon.com.
 
Paraphrasing ruthlessly:  Crawford said that he focused more on performance
than on composition, because until the 20th century, most of the music
performed in America was composed in Europe.  Europe had both a 
patronage music tradition (the great composers) and a free-market 
tradition; there was a problem in translating this to America because
Americans wanted the music from the patronage tradition -- the great 
composers again -- but America lacked the aristocracy and rich 
churches to support it.  So much of Crawford's narrative focuses on 
how people made a living from music at various times.

Crawford talked about the development of music publishing, and how one
person (forgot his name) promoted formal music training as a way to sell
sheet music.  Crawford talked about Duke Ellington at length; he says 
that Ellington's agent steered Ellington and his band into composing more
and more of their own material so that they could keep the publishing 
royalties.  (Most bands at the time played standard songs and had to 
pay royalties to other people.)

There was lots more in the 30 minute segment.  I really want that book
but I should try to be good and wait to see if a paperback comes out.

Sounds like a very interesting and useful book.

Re #0:
If you're supposing total naivete on the part of the students, a good initial
unit would probably be one that would introduce the students to the
terminology and techniques of music, just as a beginning art history class
would introduce students to the ideas of subject, composition, technique,
style, etc.  Trying to define "what is music" is always an interesting place
to start.

There are some people who've worked at recreating Ancient Greek music, but
it is of course very speculative.  It's interesting to listen to, though, and
the Greeks are definitely worth discussing because of their great
contributions to music theory (studies of modes, intervals, etc. -- other
ancient civilizations such as the Chinese also made major developments in
theory, but I don't know as much about that.  I think that the Chinese made
some of the same musical discoveries as Pythagoras a few hundred years earlier
than him, actually.  I'm taking a non-Western music history class this
fall, so maybe I'll be able to tell you more later!)

A study of Western music history generally begins around the year 500 AD with
the Romanesque period of Medieval music.  Pretty much what we have from
this era is music created for church services/rituals.  Monophonic, 
conjuct plainchant is what we're talking about here, with Pope Gregory
catagorizing and labeling a great number of them sometime between 590 and
604 AD.  Plainchant itself has its roots in many musical traditions, such
as Jewish musical traditions, responsorial singing at early Christian
gatherings, hymns (some dating back to Assyria), and Eastern Christian
chant known as Byzantine chant.

As for listening examples, there are many CDs of Gregorian chant available;
I can't think of any particular chants that are exemplary and are
"must-listens," (although if I were teaching the class I might want to sneak
the Dies Irae in there because it recurrs so frequently throughout all of
Western music).

I guess that's a place to start.

I dunno.  If I were teaching history of western music, I might start 
with some familiar classical piece Eine Kleine Nachtmusik or 
Beethoven's 5th and explain the layout of the movements and the sonata 
form of the first movement, and then move forward and back from there.  
That simple formal approach -- what does a symphony look like? what 
does a concerto look like? -- has the most bang for the buck.  Once you 
learn exposition-repeat-development-recapitulation-coda, you can listen 
to the entire classical period, most of the romantic period, and even 
much of the 20th century, and it'll start to make sense to you.  Even 
the first movement of Mahler's 6th, which seems so wild and sprawling, 
shows that Mahler was a member of the club who knew the rules and 
played by them.  

The rest of it -- medieval chant, Balinese gamelan, etc. -- is all very 
interesting, but peripheral and inessential for a beginner.

i'd start with the fiddle tune:
"Skunk in a Collard Patch"

Re 27:
The only problem with doing something like that is that you're really starting
the study of music history in the mid-18th century, while Colleen was asking
for something that would trace music history from "a very early time."  What
you're suggesting would be a very interesting, good idea for an 
introductory music appreciation class, I think, but might not work as well
as an overview of music history.

So, why not "Nail That Catfish to the Tree" or maybe "Smash the Windows"?

MD has a point, and his method is the one I'd pick for designing a 
class, but it's not, strictly speaking, a historical survey.

        Western Music, by Grout, Professor of Music, Cornell 

        I have a copy of that. I *found* it laying in Angell
        Hall 20 years ago. I took one look inside and realized
        I could make great use of it. And I have. If I hear
        something on the radio I need to read about, it's
        excellent for that.

Well, if anyone can find a recording by the Hollywood String Quartet of 
Arnold Schoenberg's 1899 piece 'Verklarte Nacht', it should definitely be 
included.  And if you *can* find it, please let me know, because I really 
want a copy.

Now that my computer at work will play audio cds, I've started reading and
listening.  At least, I've been to the library and checked out some stuff.

hmmm..

I'm a little confused about the evolution of turn of the century
music.
  
would it go something like this:

classical       ????-1900 (Sousa, Elgar, Rachmaninoff)
Ragtime         1890-1917 (joplin, berlin, europe, gershwin)
Dixieland       ???
Bigband         193?-194? (Glenn Miller, Goodman, Dorseys)

I'm guessing from there it branches again.
 
Modern Jazz (1950-196?) Miles Davis, Coletrain, Getz, Baker, Brubeck

early 50's (1950-1954) - Mel Torme, Dinah Shore, Rosemary Clooney
 
Early Rock & Roll (1954-196?) Elvis, BIll Haley, Dion, Kingston trio


Am I over simpilfying it?

I'd say you are.  You're leaving out the blues, which is a very, very 
important forerunner to jazz.  Not sure how the blues breaks down, but 
don't forget when Muddy Waters plugged into an amp and changed the 
Delta sound, paving the way for later artists like B.B. King and 
Stevie Ray Vaughn.  You're also leaving out rhythm and blues, which 
formed the roots of rock and roll (which term was coined by DJ Alan 
Freid [sp?])

You shouldn't forget march music, of which Carl King and John Phillip 
Sousa were a part of.  Sousa does not belong in the Eurocentric 
category which you call 'classical,' really.  Sousa and Scott Joplin 
were contemporaries, so march music and ragtime were influenced by the 
other.

I believe George Gershwin was a jazz artist and not a ragtime 
composer.  I'm not sure about Irving Berlin, either.

If you want to break down classical properly, this would be a good bet:
Renaissance
Baroque
Classical
Romantic
Late Romantic (some musicologists classify Debussy as the 
Impressionist anomaly)
20th Century- John Cage, atonalism, minimalism
Remember that Beethoven bridged the Classical and Romantic periods.

Don't forget the evolution of folk music.  Not sure how to break this 
down, but I think the easiest classifications I can think of are
Traditional folk song
Country (Appalachian, hillbilly music)
Western (saddle songs, cattleman's music)
Country & Western (the merge)
There were heavy influences from Celtic music in Country and Western 
genres.

You seem to be breaking down jazz a little bit.  Jazz started out in 
New Orleans, grew up in Chicago, and came of age in New York.
From the blues:
Dixieland
Bigband
Swing
Bebop
Cool
Fusion
Scat
Freeform
Smooth (might get a little debate on this one)

Rock and Roll per se was changed early on.  Alan Fried coined the term 
to get airplay for 'race music,' which it was called at the time.  It 
was strongly influenced by rhythm and blues and many of the white-
faced groups you hear in 50's music were doing covers of tunes 
originally recorded by black artists.  Bill Haley and Earl Perkins (he 
originally did Blue Suede Shoes) were some of the artists responsible 
for mixing Texas swing with rock and roll and the genre has been 
trading licks with country & western genres to this day.  You should 
not forget the Beatles-- although they had a foot in the folk that was 
about in that day (it was changing a lot, thanks to Bob Dylan plugging 
in his guitar)-- I think most musicologists put them in rock and roll 
and are acknowledging the songwriting of McCartney and Lennon.

Rhythm & Blues, soul, and funk are likely the grandchildren of jazz.  
You have some of the history of rhythm & blues (albeit poor), although 
I can't be sure about the other two.  Soul and funk, I'm sure, are in 
the same vein.  James Brown is named in both genres as a pioneer.  As 
far as funk, George Clinton is another large influence.

Ummm, I think "Earl" Perkins is more commonly known as "Carl"  ;)

Thank you-- I knew I didn't have that right and I should have just 
done a quick Google search.

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