Course Syllabus

MUSC 1030 Intro to Jazz and American Pop

Course Description

This course is a general music appreciation class designed to empower music listeners by giving them an understanding of American jazz and popular music. Students will develop analytical and listening skills that help them to identify and be able to seek and write about jazz and popular music styles.

Justification

The study of American vernacular music is common in higher education across the United States. Most schools in Utah offer this course or something similar. This course has been articulated with the Utah State Office of Education and is taught as a concurrent enrollment course.

General Education Outcomes

1. A student who completes the GE curriculum has a fundamental knowledge of human cultures and the natural world. Students who complete this course will be able to demonstrate an understanding of the connection between American vernacular music and American institutions, and cultures.
2. A student who completes the GE curriculum can read and research effectively within disciplines. Students will be able to demonstrate fluency in this outcome through researching topics from the course content or as approved by instructor.
3. A student who completes the GE curriculum can draw from multiple disciplines to address complex problems. Students will gain an understanding of the cultural political, artistic and economic variables driving the evolution of American vernacular music.
4. A student who completes the GE curriculum can reason analytically, critically, and creatively. Students will be able to analyze selected works and critically evaluate their role in American Jazz and Pop.

General Education Knowledge Area Outcomes

1. Students will gain an understanding of the creative process as it applies to jazz and American popular music through answers given to essay based examinations. For example, students will be able to articulate the process whereby a jazz musician improvises over bebop changes, or the formulas used by Tin Pan Alley songwriters to increase the odds that their songs would become hits. Students will gain an understanding of the creative process as it applies to jazz and American popular music through answers given to essay based examinations. For example, students will be able to articulate the process whereby a jazz musician improvises over bebop changes, or the formulas used by Tin Pan Alley songwriters to increase the odds that their songs would become hits.
2. APPRECIATE: Apply artistic concepts and ideas drawn from traditions of artistic creation and theory to better engage with, analyze and understand a creative work. Students will gain an understanding of the intersections between American popular music and American culture and history. For example, students will be able to connect the diaspora of jazz and blues with the politics of the Great Migration.
3. CONNECT: Examine connections between art and society and articulate how the arts are a historical and cultural phenomenon.  Students will gain an understanding of the elements of music and their application to the creation of American popular music through their answers to listening examinations.

Student Learning Outcomes

1. Students will be able to define and demonstrate recognition of the basic musical elements of jazz and popular music
2. Students will be able to identify, by sound, the different genres of music studied in the course, and have the musical vocabulary necessary to describe the sounds they are hearing.
3. Students will be able to identify major jazz and popular music performers and describe their contributions to the development of American music.
4. Students will be able to identify and understand major cultural "mileposts" in American history, and the impact that these events had on American music.

Course Content

Course content may be drawn from the following knowledge areas:Musical vocabulary Introduction to American popular musicPopular music of the 19th and early 20th centuriesSocial dance and jazzThe golden age of Tin Pan AlleyRace records and hillbilly music in the 1920s and 30s Jazz in the swing eraPostwar jazz: 1950s-1960sPostwar pop: 1946-1954 The beginnings of rock and roll, 1954-1959American pop and the British InvasionCountry, Soul, Urban Folk, & Folk-Rock in the 1960s The 1970s, Rock, Disco, and the Popular MainstreamProgressive Country, Reggae, Punk and New Wave, Funk, & RapThe 1980 and 1990s