: This document includes the “Read” portion of the first three chapters of the digital textbook Crossroads: The
Music of American Cultures, Second Edition, Elizabeth F. Barkley, Ph.D. (Kendall Hunt, 2013) ISBN 978-1-4652-8453-2.
It is provided as a courtesy to students who, for whatever reasons, are unable to purchase/register the textbook within
the first 2 weeks of the academic quarter.
CHAPTER ONE: UNDERSTANDING AND REMEMBERING THE
JOURNEY
I’ve chosen Norah Jones’ mellow “Travelin’ On” to include in this first chapter as we start our journey
exploring American music. In the lyrics she says, “don’t be too hard on yourself,” which should also
apply to your participation in this course. If you put in a reasonable amount of effort, you are going to
be fine, so relax and enjoy the trip!
Chapter 1: Understanding and Remembering the Journey
Playlist
The following table indicates the music listening examples that will be provided in the
Napaster/Rhapsody Playlist for this chapter.
# Song Title Artist
1 Amor Prohibido Selena
2 Lose Yourself Eminem
3 Ohio Neil Young
4 Remember the Name Fort Minor
5 Travelin’ On Norah Jones
Introduction
As we begin our travels together exploring American music, I invite you to take a few moments to think
about other trips you have taken. Which ones made a lasting impression upon you, and which ones have
you pretty much forgotten? I traveled a lot as a child by car and by train. I remember looking out the
window at the scenery passing by, and the images I saw then remain vividly in my memory now. As I
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watch children traveling today, many engrossed in their electronic games and portable DVD players, I
wonder how much will they remember of their excursion? I have sometimes traveled for work and to
conferences, checked in to the hotel, and never left the building to investigate the surrounding city. As a
result, I did not learn much about my travel destination, nor do I even remember the hotel.
If one does not make the effort to pay attention and engage in what is happening, one is likely to forget
most of the experience. I would like you to be engaged in and remember our voyage together, so how
can I help you do that? I explored this topic extensively a few years ago and concluded that student
engagement results from the synergistic interaction of motivation and active learning (Barkley, 2010). To
offer you insights on how you can help yourself be an engaged learner in this course as well as to explain
why I have organized it the way I have, let us first explore basic principles drawn from the research and
theory on motivation and active learning.
About Motivation and Learning
Motivation is a theoretical construct to explain the reason or reasons we partake in a particular behavior. It is the feeling of interest or enthusiasm that makes us want to do something. Brophy defines motivation in the classroom as “the level of enthusiasm and the degree to which students invest attention and effort in learning” (2004, p. 4). Research demonstrates that motivation to learn is an acquired competence developed through an individual’s cumulative experience with learning situations. Some of you enrolled in this class with a high motivation to learn. Others of you may be more motivated by the economic opportunities associated with the professions and careers you hope to have once you graduate. Regardless of your general disposition, motivation is also activated or suppressed in specific situations: even if you are generally motivated to learn you may be less enthusiastic in a course which you feel coerced to take because it is a required element of the general education pattern. Conversely, you may be generally unmotivated to learn but may become quite enthusiastic about learning in a specific course.
Motivation has been researched extensively and has led to many different theoretical models. Today’s
theorists observe that much of what researchers have found can be organized within an expectancy x
value model. This model holds that the effort that people are willing to expend on a task is the product
of the degree to which they expect to be able to perform the task successfully (expectancy) and the
degree to which they value the task itself (value). People will not willingly invest effort in tasks that they
do not enjoy and that do not lead to something they value even if they know that they can perform the
tasks successfully, nor do they willingly invest effort in even highly valued tasks if they believe that they
cannot succeed no matter how hard they try. In short, your motivation is strongly influenced by what
you think is important and what you believe you can accomplish. In this textbook, I have tried to create
a context that you will find motivating by trying to help you find value in what you are learning and by
helping you develop high expectancy about your own ability to succeed.
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Helping You Find Value in What You are Learning in This Course
You may be genuinely interested in learning about the roots of American music and hence find the content intrinsically interesting. Alternately, you may have enrolled in this course because you hope it will be the least painless way to check off an annoying general education requirement. Your personal reasons for enrolling in the course will naturally influence how much value you find in what I am trying to teach you. That said, I have tried to help you find value in the course content by:
• Attempting to make the content relevant by foregrounding connections between history and the
present.
• Organizing each music chapter into an easy-to-follow and standardized sequence consisting of
Historical and Social Context, Structural Characteristics, Stylistic Categories, and Key Musicians.
• Including Side Trips on topics (such as this chapter’s comments on the power of music) that I
hope you will find interesting.
• Choosing a wide range of music examples that have been carefully selected to be enjoyable as
well as informative.
• Bundling the textbook with a Rhapsody subscription so that you can pursue additional music
examples as well as your own music preferences.
• Focusing on significant learning rather than busywork. To do this, I have identified learning
outcomes correlated to Fink’s Significant Learning Taxonomy (2013) as described in the following
table.
Taxonomy
Dimension
General Definition This Course’s Learning Outcome
Foundational
Knowledge
Understanding and remembering the
information, ideas, and perspectives that
form the basis for other kinds of learning
in the subject area.
By the end of this course, a successful
learner will demonstrate detailed
knowledge regarding the structural
characteristics, stylistic categories, key
musicians, and historical context of a
variety of American music genres.
Application Making connections between ideas,
learning experiences, and different realms
of life so that everything is put into context
and learning is more powerful.
By the end of this course, a successful
learner will be able to distinguish between
American music genres by applying
knowledge of structural characteristics,
stylistic traits, and performance attributes.
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Human
Dimension
Learning about the personal and social
implications of what one is learning, thus
giving the learning significance as learners
learn about themselves and others.
By the end of this course, a successful
learner will be able to discuss with insight
and understanding the multicultural
context and the social and personal
implications of American music genres.
Learning How
to Learn
Learning about the process of learning and
how to become a better, more self-
directed learner, which enables learners to
continue learning and do so with greater
effectiveness.
By the end of this course, a successful
learner will demonstrate self-managed
learning in a comprehensive journal in
which they reflect upon, evaluate, and
describe their own learning process.
Helping You Expect to be Successful in This Course
Whether or not you succeed in this course depends primarily upon the effort you invest, but I have
implemented several strategies in an effort to help you feel confident that if you do try, you will
succeed. I am trying to help you succeed in this course by:
• Being clear and explicit about what you are expected to learn in stated learning outcomes (see
table above) and then including “Travel Guides” for each chapter that identify how that chapter’s
learning activity supports your achievement of the learning outcomes.
• Including a number of “Travel Tools” that range from additional online resources to tips from
prior students.
• Creating “Flash Cards” for both vocabulary and concepts that provide you with an opportunity to
review the material you will be quizzed upon.
• Providing you with a list of questions at the end of each lab from which the lab questions will be
drawn, thereby giving you the opportunity to determine the correct answer before taking the quiz.
• Allowing you to select an ‘alternate’ lab question if you are unable to answer the given lab
question.
• Ensuring that all of the assessments are clear and straightforward with no “tricks.”
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Motivation is the portal to engaged learning, but it is important to realize that motivation is internal and
individual – I can’t ‘motivate’ you to learn in this class, but I have tried to create a context that you will
find motivating by implementing the strategies described above that address the two key components
of motivation: value and expectancy. Let us now turn our attention to active learning.
About Active Learning
Defining Active Learning
“Active learning” is an umbrella term that puts into practice over a half-century of research that
demonstrates that to truly learn, we need to take new information and make it our own by working it
into our personal knowledge and experience. The term is often used as a contrast to “passive learning,”
which is where the learner is simply ingesting information without taking part in processing it. This kind
of learning rests lightly on the brain and is soon forgotten. It is easy to confuse active learning with
physical activity, thinking, for example, that if you are in a class doing group work such as small group
discussion, you are doing active learning. Although doing group work is more likely to promote active
learning than sitting in a lecture hall quietly listening, active learning is not an automatic result. If you
have participated in group work, you know that from a learning perspective, sometimes it is a waste of
time. If group work is off-task, redundant, or superfluous, you might even feel that it is aggravating and
frustrating.
Active learning does not mean “activity,” but rather, it means that your mind is actively engaged. Its
defining characteristics are that you are a dynamic participant in your learning and that you are
reflecting on and monitoring both the processes and the results of your learning. Reading the text in
this online book or even sitting in a lecture hall can be active learning if you are self-questioning,
analyzing, and incorporating the information you are reading or hearing into your existing knowledge.
To better understand how active learning occurs, it is useful to have at least a basic understanding of its
neurological basis. What We Know from Neuroscience
Neuroscientists are making amazing discoveries about what happens within our brains when we are
learning. The brain is composed of cells called neurons. Although these neurons start out as round cell
bodies, as we learn, each cell body grows a single long root called an axon as well as hundreds of
thousands of short branches called dendrites. Neurons receive information through the dendrites then
send it as a signal down the axon where chemical neurotransmitters are “fired” across a gap in a
structure called the synapse to be received by the dendrites of a neighboring neuron. As the
neurotransmitter enters the dendrites of the new neuron, it sparks a series of electro-chemical reactions
that cause the receiving neuron also to “fire” through its axon. The process continues in a sequence
from neuron to neuron until there is a pattern or network of neuronal connections firing together.
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This sequence is initiated in response to the thousands of stimuli we experience every moment of our
lives. Our neurons stay in a state of readiness for hours or even days after one of these firing events, but
if the pattern is not stimulated again, the neuronal network will decay so that our brain does not get
cluttered with useless information. If the pattern is repeated while the neurons are in a state of
readiness and the pattern of neurons fires together again, the network of connections becomes more
permanent. Each of the approximately 100 billion neurons and its thousands of neighbors intertwine to
form an extraordinarily complex, integrated network of about 100 trillion constantly changing
connections. Through repetition, these patterns of connections are strengthened and we “learn” and
“remember.” On the other hand, if the connections are never or seldom repeated, the associated
network dissolves and we “forget.”
The axon is the primary mechanism for sending the information (teach), the dendrites are the primary
way by which our neurons receive information (learn), and everything that we know and understand is
preserved in the networks created by this exchange of information. You are an adult, so when you learn,
you are building upon or modifying networks you created earlier in your life. If the new information fits
easily with the old information, the existing network is strengthened and the information is said to be
“assimilated.” If the new information challenges the existing information sufficiently that the existing
structure needs to be revised, it is said to be “accommodated.”
The more dendrites you have on which to hang or attach new information, the easier it is to learn and
retain new information. This is why it is so difficult to learn information about something for which we
have absolutely no background, and much easier to add new information in areas about which we are
already quite knowledgeable. Furthermore, on a general basis, the greater number of basic neuronal
networks you have, the easier it is to form more complex networks. Thus from the perspective of
neuroscience, learning is long-lasting change in neuronal networks. When we are learning “actively,” we
are helping our brains grow dendrites that activate and build on existing neuronal networks.
What We Know from Cognitive Psychology
Cognitive psychologists call this network of associations a schema, or in plural form, schemata. A
schema consists of facts and ideas organized into a meaningful system of relationships. For example, our
brains have schemata for events, places, procedures, and people. You are a college student, and your
brain has a schema for the college in which you are enrolled. When you think about your college, your
brain’s schema might include concepts such as how much time it typically takes you to look for a parking
place, the architectural style of the Admissions building, and memories of courses, classrooms,
professors, and fellow students. Your schema is the organized collection of bits of information that have
gone into constructing your unique and individual concept of the college. Another student’s schema of
the same college would be quite different, even if in other respects they were similar to you.
Furthermore, one can easily imagine the ‘rich’ schema that would be in the mind of a student who has
been at that college for many years and contrast it with the relatively sparse schema of someone who
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had simply heard of the college. The potential for errors and misunderstanding is readily apparent if you
think about the erroneous connections that would result if someone confused the college with another
college with a closely related name or a college that has the same name but is located in a different
state. For example, there are nine colleges or universities in the United States that begin with “St.
John’s” as well as one that starts with “St. Johns.”
How important well-developed schemata are is evident in research on the differences between the
learning of novices and experts. A college professor who is an expert in a subject quickly grasps new
information about the subject because there are already a large number of connections to existing
knowledge. A student who is new to that subject is a novice, and in contrast, has a very difficult time
learning the same information, not because he or she is less smart than the expert college professor, but
because there are few connections between new and existing information and every connection has to
be “manufactured.” You have probably experienced this yourself if you have ever taken a course on a
topic for which you have had no background. It takes courage to enroll in a course outside one’s comfort
zone and persistence to stick with it because as you struggle to learn a whole new vocabulary and set of
concepts, it may feel as though the teacher is talking in a foreign language. As with neuroscience’s
neuronal networks, cognitive psychology’s schemata change and grow as we experience and learn new
things throughout our life.
The Role of Transfer in Active Learning
When we encounter new information, our brain searches for any past learnings that are similar to or
associated with something we have already experienced. If our brain finds something, the
corresponding neuronal networks or schema are activated, reinforcing the already-stored information
as well as assisting in interpreting and assigning meaning to the new information. Svinicki (2004a, p. 99)
notes that there are many types of transfer, but two types are the most important for purposes of
teaching and learning. The first is positive versus negative transfer.
If the connections our brain makes between new and existing understandings are accurate, the search
results in positive transfer that can aid us in integrating new learning. If, on the other hand, the
connections are incorrect, the result is negative transfer, which creates confusion and errors. For
example, if we are an English speaker learning Spanish, “mucho” in Spanish sounds similar to “much” in
English and is an easy word for us to learn. On the other hand, “mano a mano” sounds like “man to
man” and is often translated as such, though it actually means “hand to hand.”
The second type of transfer is near versus far transfer, which refers to the type of task. Near transfer
occurs between tasks that look very much alike and follow the same rules for responding, while a far
transfer task is where the same rules apply, but the rules are transferred to a different setting. “Far
transfer” requires us to think more than “near transfer.” Svinicki (2004b, pp. 100-101) offers driving a
mid-level automatic sedan as an example: if you’ve already driven one, you can easily drive any other
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because the steering wheel, gear shift, windshield wipers, and turn signals all look alike and are in the
same position.
If, on the other hand, you get into a car that is very different from one you’re accustomed to driving
(such as a convertible, stick-shift sports car), your normal driving responses are not instantly triggered
and you have to stop and figure out where everything is. The basic rules are the same, but the car looks
different. Moving between different mid-level automatic sedans is a near transfer task; moving from a
mid-level automatic sedan to a stick-shift sports car is a far transfer task.
Using an example in music, learning to play guitar if one already knows how to play bass guitar is an
example of near transfer, whereas learning to play guitar if one already knows how to play piano is an
example of far transfer. Interestingly, near transfer does not always result in positive transfer. For
example when I was studying as music major at the university, I became very interested in music from
the 17th century and wanted to learn to play an old keyboard instrument called the harpsichord. Since I
was already an accomplished pianist, it was easy for me to transfer my keyboard skills to the new
instrument; this was a near transfer task. However the harpsichord requires different hand positions
and finger strength and my piano teacher thought trying to play both instruments would be confusing
and counter productive; this was because there would be negative transfer between the two sets of
skills. Let us look at some of the factors that affect the quality of transfer: similarity/difference,
association, and context and degree of original learning.
Similarity and Differences
It appears that the brain generally stores new information in networks that contain similar
characteristics or associations, but retrieves information by identifying how it is different from the other
items in that network. For example, the way people we know look to us seems to be stored in the
network of what all humans look like (e.g., torso, head, two arms, two legs) but if we are trying to find
someone we know in a crowd, we will look for the characteristics that distinguish them from other
people in the group (e.g., facial characteristics, skin and hair color, height, and so forth). When there is
high similarity with few differences, distinguishing between the two becomes more difficult (Sousa,
2006, p. 143).
The potential for negative transfer is higher when concepts, principles, and data, or the labels for this
information, are similar. For example in music, “whole tone” and “whole note” sound similar, but the
terms represent very different concepts (whole tone is a term for a specific interval, which, as I will
explain in another chapter, is the distance between two pitches, while whole note is the rhythmic
duration – or how long the pitch sounds in relation to the other pitches around it). You may have had
the experience where you retrieve an incorrect word. If you stop to think about it, you will probably find
that in one way or another, it is similar to the correct word.
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Association
When we learn two items together in such a manner that the two are associated with each other, when
one item is recalled, the other one will be recalled as well. For example, when most of us hear or read
“Romeo,” we unconsciously add “Juliet.” This applies to visual images as well. Thus, when we see
Apple’s apple logo, we think of the Apple computer company or if we see McDonald’s “golden arches,”
we think of the fast food restaurant (Sousa, 2006, p. 145). Because everything we know and understand
is preserved as a network of associations, the more associations we make, the greater the number of
potential “hooks” we have upon which to attach new information. This is why the more we know, the
easier it is for us to learn and remember new information.
One of the strongest influences on transfer is emotional associations, as emotions typically have higher
priority than cognitive processing for commanding our attention. For most people, words such as
abortion, torture, and murder evoke strong emotional responses. Perhaps you or someone you know
suffers from math anxiety – the fear and tension associated with math. Math anxiety seriously interferes
with some students’ ability to learn math, and one of the goals of most developmental math instructors
should be to help these students deal with their anxiety so that they can get past the emotions that are
interfering with their cognitive ability to learn to solve mathematical problems. Math anxiety is an
example of the association of a negative feeling with a content area. If you have math anxiety, you will
most likely try to avoid situations involving math in order to spare yourself the negative feelings
associated with it, but you will devote hours on activities you like because of the associated feelings of
pleasure and satisfaction (Sousa, 2006, p 145).
Context and Degree of Original Learning
The quality of the original learning also has a potent impact on transfer. If the original learning was
thorough, deep, and accurate, it is much easier to learn the next level of information. When you start
taking college courses, you are building upon the cumulative “prior learning” you acquired from
kindergarten through high school. If you were a successful student in terms of your learning (not just
your grades!) at good educational institutions prior to college, you will find learning in college much
easier than someone who did not. Even if you did not learn well prior to college, it is important to make
extra effort now to ensure that you are learning well because everything that you learn in the present
becomes the basis for the transfer that will impact future learning.
The Role of Memory in Active Learning
Once you learn something, you want to remember it. Several different models currently exist that
describe memory, but a basic and generally accepted classification divides it into two main types: short
term and long term.
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Short- and Long-Term Memory
Short-term memory is where the brain works with new information until it decides if and where to store
it more permanently. It allows us to carry out hundreds of tasks each day by holding the data we are
dealing with at the moment, but then letting it go so that our brain can turn its attention to other things.
Because its function is temporary storage, short-term memory is supported by neuronal networks that
are transient. In contrast, long-term memory is maintained by permanent cellular change because its
function is to retain associations for greater lengths of time – days, decades, even an entire lifetime.
You want to remember important new learnings long term, so how do short-term memories become
long-term memories? Research suggests that this transition occurs during a special window in time
during which the associated neurons synthesize the necessary proteins for “long-term potentiation”
(LTP). As described earlier, whenever we encounter something new, an initial stimulation triggers
communication across the synapse between two or more neurons. Subsequent stimulation causes the
neurons to produce the proteins required to bind the synapse, thus cementing the memory in place and
effectively changing the actual cellular structure of the brain.
The Importance of Sense and Meaning to Long-term Memory
How short-term memory determines whether or not information should be stored for the long term is
complex. Examples of information that have a high likelihood of being permanently stored are
information we need for survival or information that has a strong emotional component. As a student in
a college classroom where these two elements are generally minimal or absent, other factors come into
play. One important factor is whether or not the information “makes sense” to you – does it fit with
what you already know about the way the world works? Is it reasonable and coherent? When you find
that you just don’t understand something, it means that you cannot make sense of what you are
learning. If you cannot make sense of it, you probably will not remember it.
The other important factor is whether or not the information “has meaning.” Is the information
relevant? Is there some reason you have for remembering it? We remember some information just
because it made sense even though it is not particularly meaningful to us. For example, the kind of data
you may recall when you are doing a crossword puzzle or playing a game such as Trivial Pursuit is often
information that makes sense to you, but isn’t necessarily very meaningful. We also remember
information that did not necessarily make much sense to us just because it had meaning. For example,
in some courses it is important for you to memorize information in order to pass a test – it does not
matter whether or not the information is meaningful to you.
Of the two criteria, meaning is more significant. For example, if someone tells you that you need x
number of units in your academic major to earn a degree at your institution, but y number of units at a
different institution in another state, the information “makes sense.” However, you will have a higher
likelihood of remembering the number of units at your own institution because it is more meaningful
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and relevant to your educational plans. Brain scans have shown that when new learning is readily
comprehensible (it makes sense) and can be connected to past experience (it has meaning), retention is
dramatically improved (Sousa, 2006, pp. 49-51).
Retention
Retention is the process by which long-term memory preserves a learning in such a way that it can be
located, identified, and retrieved accurately in the future. Retention is influenced by many factors, but a
critical factor is having sufficient time to process and reprocess information so that it can be transferred
from short- to long-term memory. This process takes time, and usually occurs during deep, “REM” sleep.
Our brains lose the greatest amount of new learning within the first 18-24 hours, thus if you can
remember something after 24 hours, there is a higher likelihood that it has the potential for being
retained in long-term storage just as if you cannot remember what you learned after 24 hours, it is most
likely not permanently stored and will not be retained. This is why when you “crash study” for a test,
you may do well on the test but will most likely forget most of the information as soon as you turn in
your exam.
Our increasingly complex, technology-based world requires adults to be able to adapt to rapidly
changing demands in the workplace as well as everyday life. Adapting means being able to adjust to new
circumstances, and that is what “learning” means. If you are able to learn quickly, you will be able to
adapt efficiently and effectively. Becoming aware of yourself as a learner will help you develop an
important skill in today’s world: metacognition. Metacognition means that you are aware at a “meta”
level of how you are thinking. It means you are trying to understand what it is you are doing, how you
prefer to do it, and how you learn in relation to others. Taking your learning seriously while you are in
college will help you build the complex neuronal networks that will prepare you for a lifetime of
continued learning, which will not only help you to survive, but to thrive.
Helping You to Be An Active Learner
Throughout each chapter, I have adopted three broad approaches to support active learning that
correspond to the learning outcomes in the four : acquiring foundational knowledge, application, and
reflection.
Acquiring Foundational Knowledge
To help you learn and remember the foundational knowledge for this course, I have tried to present the
information as clearly as possible so that it “makes sense” to you. Additionally, wherever possible, I have
attempted to make the information relevant so that it has “meaning” for you. Finally, the flash cards are
provided to help you practice and check yourself on vocabulary and concepts so that you can repeat the
information sufficiently to remember it.
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Developing Application Skills
To help you apply the foundational knowledge that you learn, I have provided over 400 listening
examples that connect abstract, theoretical information to real examples of music. These are indicated
throughout each chapter’s “Read” section. Additionally, I have created an “Apply (Lab)” activity for each
chapter that gives you additional guided listening.
Recognizing the Human Dimension
To help you recognize the personal and social implications of what you are learning, I am providing you
with an opportunity to think about and share your thoughts regarding some aspect of the human
dimension of each chapter in the “Share” discussion forum.
Learning How to Learn
To help you learn more about the process of learning and how to become a better, more self-directing
learner, I am asking you to reflect on and write about what you are learning in the pre- and post-
reflections of the “Travel Journal.” The first pre-reflection is designed to foreground prior learning and
activate existing neuronal networks, while the closing reflection is intended to help you put new
information into your own words, to identify what you are still unclear about, and to articulate what you
hope to remember long after this course – our journey together – ends. you facilitate the creation and
strengthening of your neuronal networks. This process also helps you remember longer and to see
patterns, diagnose your learning strengths and weaknesses, and become a more independent and
effective learner.
Conclusion
As you work through this textbook exploring American music, your mind will be constantly making and
changing connections between what you already know and what is new to you. If these changed
connections result in reformatted structures – whether these structures are described as schemata or
neuronal networks – deep, long-term learning occurs. As much as you (and your teachers!) might like to
think knowledge can simply be transferred into your brain, it is simply not possible. You need to do the
work required to learn. As your “Tour Guide” on the journey, I can help you by trying to present material
in a manner that motivates you to learn (addressing value and expectancy) and by setting up conditions
where you are invited to do more of the work to integrate this information into your own brain. By
being an engaged participant in your own learning, you will leave finish this course with deeper
understanding of the material that I hope you will remember throughout your life. Once again,
welcome, I am delighted you are here.
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Side Trip
Music has a powerful effect on human beings, and although there is nothing tangible about it (indeed,
before the invention of recording, once the music stopped, it was gone!) humans have always prized it.
For the last decade or so, neuroscientists have been studying why it is so important to us. What they are
finding is that music has the potential for engaging us deep in the primitive part of our brains. If we are
listening to music that we like, it causes our brains to release the neurotransmitter dopamine. This is the
same neurotransmitter that is released when we are enjoying food and sex. (Drugs such as cocaine and
amphetamines artificially amplify the effects of dopamine, which is why we call drugs dope.) Perhaps
the reason so many people are walking around with earbuds listening to music is that the dopamine
being generated helps them deal with today’s very stressful world.
Another interesting aspect is that neuroscientists have determined that the brains of musicians are
functionally different than the brains of non-musicians. Did you know musicians have higher overall IQ
scores and are better at visual memory tasks and verbal capabilities? So does just listening to music make
you smarter? Unfortunately, not really – research indicates that you somehow have to create and learn
how to make music, not just listen passively to it. In earlier eras, more people were amateur musicians. Just
one generation ago families frequently made music together in the evenings. Now everyone just listens to
others making music.
So what is all the “buzz” about music helping you study? There is something called the “Mozart effect,”
which comes from controversial research that claimed that listening to music by the classical European
composer Mozart could induce a short-term improvement in one’s ability to think out long-term, more
abstract solutions to problems. Other studies have demonstrated that listening to certain kinds of music
relaxes and focuses one’s mind so that one can concentrate better. Interestingly for many musicians we
know having music on in the background makes it more difficult to concentrate. We think it is because a
musician’s brain wants to focus on the music instead! So what’s the bottom line? Listen to music you like to
help you feel better; start singing or learning to play an instrument if you want to get smarter.
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References
The basis for this chapter was initially published in Student Engagement Techniques: A Handbook for
College Faculty, Barkley, E.F. (San Francisco: Wiley/Jossey-Bass, 2010). This material is reproduced with
permission of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. If you have any concerns or corrections regarding content or
references, please contact Web Support who will in turn contact me. Thank you. EFB
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CHAPTER TWO: MUSIC IN MULTICULTURAL AMERICA
Since some of the earliest inhabitants and all of the first immigrants to this continent arrived here by
boat, “Sail” by Awolnation seems a fun song to add to introduce this chapter’s playlist.
Chapter 2: Understanding and Remembering the Journey
Playlist
The following table indicates the music listening examples that will be provided in the
Napaster/Rhapsody Playlist for this chapter.
# Song Title Artist
1 American Tune Paul Simon
2 Geronimo’s Cadillac Bill Miller
3 La Llorona Lila Downs
4 Sail Awolnation
5 Our Roots (Began in Africa) Pharaoh Sanders
6 With or Without You 8PAST
7 Where Is The Love The Black Eyed Peas
Introduction
The American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow captured the importance of music when he described
it as the “universal language” of humanity. This phrase has caught the popular imagination, and many of
us now take for granted that music is common to all cultures. Although music is universally known to
mankind, there is not one universal music – there are many, many different types of music. Each culture
has its own music that makes sense and is meaningful to members of that culture, and not necessarily to
members not within that culture. Like a culture’s language, music is embedded with information that is
best understood by individuals who know what the abstract sounds mean. When we listen to music, we
are “hearing” it through our individual cultural conditioning. In this course we are exploring the music of
the United States, a country whose unique cultural context made it a crucible for the creation of many
new music genres. What is it that makes the United States so unique?
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One characteristic that makes the United States rather unique is that it is a country of immigrants, and
these immigrants are from all over the world. Although there was an indigenous population, that
population was almost immediately marginalized: when the new United States government decided to
take stock of its citizens in the first official census of 1790, Native Americans were not even counted.
Over two hundred years later in the 2010 census, American Indian and Alaska Natives comprised less
than 1 percent (.9) of the total population. Most of the 308,745,538 people who currently call
themselves Americans are either immigrants themselves or they are the descendants of immigrants. It is
this unique history of being a country of immigrants that has led to the development of a “multicultural”
America. In this chapter, we will explore what it means to be a “multicultural” nation and how that has
shaped our culture in general, and our music in particular.
Multicultural America
To understand the implications of being a “multicultural” nation, it is helpful to understand what is
meant by the word “culture.”
Culture
Culture is the combination of beliefs, customs and practices that are characteristic of a nation or people.
It includes the products of human work and thought such as art, music, literature, language and religion.
It is a way of life that organizes social experience and shapes the identities of individuals and groups.
Culture provides the glue that binds individuals together into a group that has a “sense of peoplehood,”
a group that is recognized as a group because the individuals all possess certain common characteristics.
Because of the large variety of possible groups, there is also a large variety of cultures. When discussing
how to increase tolerance for cultural diversity, we speak of the cultures associated with gender,
differences in physical ability, and sexual preference. We refer to the differences between urban and
rural social cultures, “Southern” and “Western” regional cultures, and even “community college” and
“research university” campus cultures. In music, there are clear differences in the cultures surrounding
symphony orchestra players, folksingers, and pop stars.
Ethnicity and Culture
One type of a group that possesses a culture is an ethnic group. Ethnicity refers to a group with a shared
culture based on ancestral national origin (German) or religion (Jewish). In the 2000 national census,
U.S. citizens categorized themselves into over 200 different ethnic groups. Thus Americans possess a
complex blend of the larger “American” culture (sometimes referred to as “mainstream” culture) and
one or more ethnic cultures. The degree to which one identifies with the larger American culture or
one’s more specific ethnic culture is a combination of many variables, such as whether an individual is a
first generation immigrant or a fifth generation descendent of immigrants. It is also shaped by the
degree to which an individual or that individual’s immigrant group or family chose to retain their ethnic
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culture or assimilate into the mainstream culture. Indeed, the development of an individual’s ethnic
identity is an intricate process that is continually influenced by a wide range of social and environmental
factors.
Race and Culture
Another type of group that is often associated with a distinct culture consists of individuals belonging to
the same “race.” Race has traditionally been a classification system based on physical characteristics,
and hence has been a biological category as distinguished from ethnicity, which is a sociological
category. The concept of race developed in the 17th century when scientists were attempting to
categorize human beings in the same way they were attempting to categorize all living things. Scientists
based their categorization on physical traits such as skin color or eye shape, observing that the
proportions of certain traits were differently distributed from one part of the world to another. This
variance in distribution is believed to be due to inbreeding within a geographic region. In the past,
people traveled less and marriages were likely to be between neighbors. This resulted in the people of a
specific geographic area developing and retaining similar physical characteristics.
The physical characteristics possessed by a group in a particular geographic area may reflect adaptations
to the different environments in which the ancestors of that group of individuals lived for many
generations. Although the concept of genetic adaptation is still debated, most scholars agree that it is
probable that human beings have adapted biologically to such conditions as climate, disease, and diet.
For example, the physical response of humans to a hot environment is to cool off through perspiring.
Although all humans seem to have the same number of sweat glands, peoples of hot, dry climates
where it is especially important to be able to cool off tend to be tall and slim, with a maximum of skin
available for potential cooling by sweating. In Arctic regions, stocky body builds are more common, and
these traits may help to conserve heat. Also, tightly curled head hair and darker skin may provide more
protection against direct sunlight, while long, straight hair may provide more warmth and lighter skin
may be less susceptible to frostbite. Although it seems probable that regional physical characteristics are
the results of adaptation to different geographical environments, efforts to explain the present
distribution of physical traits on this basis are still speculative and rigorously debated. There are several
significant problems with classifying individuals into races.
Problems With Classification by Race
Individuals Have Many Common Ancestors
Although races are defined as persons with the same pool of ancestors, no individuals have precisely the
same ancestors except for brothers and sisters. Each of us has two parents, four grandparents, eight
great-grandparents, and so on expanding to a very large group of ancestors. Yet there are more people
living today than have lived in the history of humankind combined. Thus if each individual were able to
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trace their ancestors back through time, they would find that we have many ancestors in common and
we are all probably descendants of a small group of very early ancestors.
The Concept of Race Has Been Misused Historically
The concept of race has traditionally been misapplied, promoting a hierarchy for claims that some races
were superior to others. Especially in the late nineteenth century, “scientific” racialism asserted the
superiority of Caucasians (specifically Anglo-Saxons) and this was used as justification for genocide,
imperialism and immigration restriction.
Classification by Race is Not Scientifically Useful
The concept of race is of limited usefulness. Although it is supposed to be a biological-based
categorization, it is in fact not very effective in explaining current biological responses. Human beings
belong to the same species and while it is possible that one human group may have some genetic
advantages in response to such factors as climate and dietary resources, these differences are small and
greatly out-numbered by commonalities. With social disadvantages eliminated, there are no differences
in native intelligence or mental capacity that cannot be explained by environmental circumstances.
Race is sometimes used to trace the origins of ethnic groups, but because ethnic groups are based on
sociological characteristics, race and ethnicity are more or less independent of one another. For
example individuals who are racially classified as “Black” or “Asian” have a wide range of ethnic
backgrounds. Trying to separate “racial” and “ethnic” influences such that all humans can be divided
into a small enough number of discrete groups that would result in every individual belonging to one
and only one group is impossible and ultimately not useful or effective. Thus scientists have generally
abandoned using racial classifications in favor of geographic or social criteria in their study of human
variability.
Many Americans are Multiracial
In the United States, an important problem is that many individuals can be classified into more than one
race. For example in general, American “Blacks” average about four-fifths African origin and the rest
European and/or Native American. Golf champion Tiger Woods coined the term “Cablinasian” to
describe his white, black, Thai, Chinese, and American Indian heritage, a heritage he shared in 2000 with
10,671 Americans. In the 1990 census, half a million Americans taking the census refused to check only
one race, forcing the 2000 census to allow for multiple racial responses. Seven million Americans took
advantage of this change in racial reporting, and the number grew to over nine million by the 2010
census. To accommodate the increased numbers of multi-racial citizens, the 2010 census allowed
Americans to choose whether or not they were from one, two, three, four, five or six races. Almost fifty-
nine thousand citizens identified themselves as belonging to four races (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010
Redistricting Data, Public Law 940171, Summary File Table P1). Conversely, some groups do not fit into a
race at all. The people of present-day India fit most closely in terms of biological characteristics with
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those of Europe, except that many of them have dark skin, associated with people from Africa. The
aborigines of Australia are also dark-skinned but do not in other ways appear closely related to the
peoples of Africa.
It is now generally accepted that humans cannot be scientifically classified into races based on biological
factors, and hence race is now seen as a social construction, similar to ethnicity. Although race as a
viable biological construct has largely been abandoned by the scientific community, race continues to
shape culture and society. American citizens are still identified and categorized into races, and racial
identity plays a fundamental role in their opportunities and social experiences. For immigrants, it
influences their experience of acculturation and assimilation.
Acculturation and Assimilation into American Society
Acculturation is the process whereby immigrants absorb cultural attributes. In America, immigrants
become acculturated when, for example, they speak American English and when they assume the
manners and values of the mainstream society. As they become acculturated, they change their
behavior and thinking because they now live in a different mainstream culture. Assimilation is the
process by which these immigrants are integrated into the social networks—such as work and
residence—of the mainstream society. The essential difference is that the immigrants do the
acculturation, while society does the assimilation.
Many immigrants have experienced only limited acculturation and assimilation due to a variety of
factors. Sometimes the immigrants themselves are determined not to be acculturated, but instead wish
to hold on to their original country’s traditions, languages, and beliefs. When they immigrate to the
United States, they regroup in cities and towns in ways that are designed to help them maintain their
customary ways. If a group is strongly opposed to acculturation, it is likely that the group will have
difficulty being assimilated. More often, however, the dominant, mainstream group has set up
impediments to assimilation.
Impediments to Assimilation
At different times throughout U.S. history, impediments to assimilation have been based on social class,
gender, religion, and national ethnicity. For example, at one time, Catholics were strongly discriminated
against partly because the predominant Protestant group felt that Catholics would be slavish followers
of the Roman Catholic pope and not be able to think independently. While impediments have fluctuated
throughout U.S. history, one impediment has remained consistent, and that is the impediment of race.
Race, especially skin color, has probably been the single most important obstacle to acceptance and
assimilation into mainstream American society. This has been the case since the nation’s founding: soon
after the United States became an independent country, the Naturalization Act of 1790 specified that
citizenship was available to “any alien, being a free white person.” Thus Native Americans, African
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Americans, Asians, and many people of Hispanic or Latin American background faced barriers to
assimilation from the earliest years of this country’s history.
The Role of Race and Ethnicity in Immigration Policies
Although citizenship was restricted to free whites, the United States initially welcomed all newcomers
with minimal regulation. In 1882, however, two laws were passed that started a period of steadily
tighter immigration restrictions. The first law established qualitative health and moral standards by
excluding “criminals, prostitutes, lunatics, idiots, and paupers.” The second law, the Chinese Exclusion
Act, denied admission to Chinese immigrants. This law led to further agitation for exclusion of Asians in
general, culminating in the Immigration Law of 1924. This law essentially limited immigration of specific
groups and denied entry to aliens ineligible for citizenship—those who were not “free whites.” One of
the results of this law was the implementation of the National Origins Act in 1929, which put in place
quota systems designed to allow residents of favored countries to immigrate while restricting
immigration from non-favored countries with “inferior” races (at the time southern and eastern
Europeans as well as Asians).
The United States maintained this restrictive, racially based policy for several decades until the
Immigration Act of 1965, which attempted to respond to increased national sensitivity to civil rights.
This law eliminated the national origins quota system and opened the country to immigration from
throughout the world. Although it maintained numerical quotas by hemisphere (120,000 annual visas
from the Western Hemisphere, 170,000 from the Eastern Hemisphere), it exempted immigrants seeking
family reunification with American citizens or resident aliens. This greatly increased the “chain
migration” of people seeking to join relatives already in the United States and resulted in Asian
immigrants becoming the fastest growing ethnic group. Asian immigrants included highly skilled
professionals as well as low-skilled, impoverished laborers, many seeking political refuse from countries
such as Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. At the same time, desperate economic and political conditions in
Mexico and Central America enlarged the flow of legal and illegal immigrants from these areas.
As a result of all these factors, millions of new immigrants have come to the United States since 1965,
mostly from Asia and Latin America rather than Europe. It is this extensive influx of non-European
immigrants that has been the most significant factor in creating the diverse population in the United
States today. The impact the 1965 immigration policy has had on our nation was evident in the 2008
election of Barack Obama. As an African-American with a Kenyan father, President Obama possesses
racial and ethnic characteristics that would have been impossible for an American president in 1965.
Illegal (or ‘undocumented’) immigration has become a growing concern. Many immigrants came from
Europe and Asia on student or tourist visas and simply decided to stay. Others came into the U.S. by
crossing over the Canadian or Mexican border. Nativism – a political position promoting established
inhabitants and opposing newcomers – can run strong in states such as California and Arizona that have
absorbed the bulk of these new immigrants.
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In 1986, the government attempted to address the issue with the Immigration Reform and Control Act.
This law extended amnesty for undocumented immigrants under certain conditions but imposed
penalties on employers who hired undocumented immigrants. With the economic recession that
started in the early 1990s, competition for jobs increased, and since many immigrants (legal as well as
illegal) were willing to work for lower wages, anti-immigrant feelings intensified. The 9/11 terrorist
attacks and mailings of anthrax spores prompted the Homeland Security Act of 2002 which created the
Department of Homeland Security (DHS), a department that took over many of the immigration service
and enforcement functions formerly provided by the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Appeals
for tighter immigration controls have continued to be part of the political landscape, fueled by security
concerns as well as the continued economic recession. Yet ‘how’ to deal with illegal immigration
remains problematic.
Congress passed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act in 1996 in an attempt
to improve border enforcement and reduce use of social programs by immigrants. In 2005, for example,
the House of Representatives passed Bill 261-161, attempting to tighten controls by barring states from
issuing driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, enhancing border patrol between California and Mexico,
and increasing the burden of proof for political asylum. The congressional battle that followed this bill
and the fighting that surrounds similar legislation at the federal and state levels reflects a country deeply
divided over immigration policies and reform.
The United States Today
The United States is now in its third century of existence, and although many Americans still feel their
closest cultural allegiance is to Europe, there is a growing number of Americans who do not.
Furthermore, race is still an important factor in U.S. society. American citizens continue to be identified
and categorized into races, and racial identity still plays a fundamental role in shaping their
opportunities and social experiences. It is challenging to measure the growth or decline of racial groups
since 1990 because Census 2000 and Census 2010 used both different and more racial categories,
but of the foreign-born Americans counted in the 1990 census, fewer than 1 in 8 came from Western
Europe. The vast majority of immigrants came from Asia, the Caribbean, or one of the countries of Latin
America, particularly Mexico.
Thus America continues to be a country of immigrants, but now these immigrants are coming from all
over the world, creating the most diverse population of any nation on Earth. A brief glance at almost any
American city, classroom, or workplace powerfully reinforces this point. Many Americans have become
alarmed at these changes in the country’s demographics. They have voiced concerns that the unity of
the nation is being threatened by its diversity, that there are more powerful centrifugal forces pulling
the country apart than there are centripetal forces holding it together. One of the challenges the
country continues to face is to find the means to forge a national identity that embraces this
multicultural diversity while also celebrating the ties that bind us together as Americans.
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American Multiculturalism and American Music
How does multiculturalism affect America’s music? Like the population of the United States, music in
the United States is diverse and eclectic, drawing from the many different cultural traditions of its
people. Paralleling its immigrant patterns, the early history of American music reflected the primary
Western European culture. At first the colonists simply transplanted European music, but later,
American musicians such as Heinrich, Gottschalk, Sousa, and Ives composed their own American
versions of these European traditions. As the flood of immigrants diversified, as the new nation
expanded its territories to absorb new lands (such as what had been the northern provinces of Mexico),
and once African-Americans were freed from slavery, American musicians began creating a whole range
of hybrid musical genres. Examples of these uniquely American multicultural musics include Spirituals,
Gospel, Blues, Jazz, Cajun, Zydeco, Salsa, Banda, Tejano, Rhythm and Blues, Soul and Rap – genres that
we will study in subsequent chapters as we continue our exploration of American music.
Conclusion
The population of the United States is a fascinating and complex mixture of Native Americans,
immigrants, and the descendants of immigrants. Immigrants have brought the music traditions of their
home countries with them and, as immigrants from one country come into contact with immigrants
from other countries, they were exposed to different music traditions. Uniquely American musics such
as spirituals, blues, jazz, gospel, Cajun, Zydeco, rock ‘n’ roll, and Tejano are the results of the merging of
different immigrant music traditions and styles. Studying these styles from a cultural perspective
involves paying attention not only to the sound itself, but also to the human behavior that produces and
values that sound.
In this book we will examine selected, uniquely American music styles on two levels: the sound, and the
historical and social context in which those sounds are created. Within the “sound” category we will
develop and apply a vocabulary of structural building blocks introduced in the next chapter so that we
can see what is universal or specific to each culture’s music. From the perspective of “context,” we will
see how that music emerged from the historical experiences of one of the five broad American
constituent groups: Native Americans, European Americans, Latino Americans, African Americans, and
Asian Americans. Through study in this combined historical and musical approach, I hope that you will
develop greater appreciation for, and understanding of, the diverse and eclectic musical traditions of
the United States.
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Side Trip:
The “United States” or “America?”
Throughout this book, when we talk about “America,” we are referring to the “United States.” This is
because people from the United States are generally known around the world as “Americans.” Yet
some people see this as presumptuous and ethnocentric. The United States is located in North America,
one two continents on our planet’s Western Hemisphere. Separated from South America by the Panama
Canal, North America includes
• three large nations: Canada, the United States, and Mexico; as well as
• the smaller nations in the area of Central America (Guatemala, El Salvador, Belize, Costa Rica,
Panama, and Nicaragua); and
• the island nations to the West (such as Cuba and Jamaica).
• South of the Panama Canal, the continent of South America includes
• the nations of Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, Chile, Argentina,
and Uruguay.
Another name for the Western Hemisphere is “the Americas,” in effect making anyone from all of these
nations on the two continents “American.”
The Americas also include cultural regions. “Latin America” refers to the vast majority of countries
south of the United States. Although not actually very accurate, the term groups those countries under
the common experience of having been colonized by European countries with Latin-based languages,
especially Portugal and Spain. In contrast, we speak of “Anglo-America” (though not as common a term)
when we refer to the United States and Canada, as those countries were colonized primarily by Anglos,
which is another name for the English, the descendants of Anglo-Saxons. Incidentally, Anglo-Saxons
were themselves descendants, along with such peoples as the Scandinavians and the Dutch, of
Germanic tribes who apparently migrated into northern Europe from western Asia.
History in the Americas is an ever-evolving story. Hundreds of civilizations thrived here prior to
European conquest and colonization. While there had been small European, Asian, African, and
Polynesian expeditions to the Americas prior to 1492, the Western Hemisphere had existed in relative
isolation from the rest of the world. While vigorous trade had been taking place between peoples in the
continents of Europe, Asia, and Africa, the American continents evolved independently. We refer to the
peoples who lived in the Americas as “Native Americans” because they are the original inhabitants of
the Americas.
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Many older history books speak of the “Old World” and its “discovery” of the “New World.” More
current historians say that these terms have a European perspective that frequently disregards the
Native American view, and Native Americans vehemently oppose the continued use of these terms. The
term “discovery” implies to locate or identify something unclaimed or unknown; one cannot “discover”
a land that is already occupied. Likewise, the “New World” was only new to invading Europeans, and
clearly not new to the inhabitants of the Americas. It is important to make these distinctions as we
continue to promote greater understanding and appreciation for the diversity of people within the
United States and all of the Americas.
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References
The basis of this chapter was initially published in Crossroads: The Multicultural Roots of America’s
Popular Music, 2nd edition by Barkley, E.F. (New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2010), and included the
references below. To update the content for this digital environment, I have used less traditional
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Wikipedia, digital music archives, and so forth. If you have any concerns or corrections regarding
content or references, please contact Web Support who will in turn contact me. Thank you. EFB
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Galens, Anna Sheets, Robyn V. Young (eds). New York: Gale Research Inc., An International Thomson
Publishing Co., 1995.
Wright, Lawrence. “One Drop of Blood.” The New Yorker, July 25, 1995.
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CHAPTER THREE
DEVELOPING A BASIC MUSIC VOCABULARY
Listen for a few moments to each of the four tracks that start this chapter’s playlist to note how
dissimilar they are to each other. The American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow described music as
the “universal language,” but these tracks demonstrate that while music is universal, there is no
universal music. Many aspects of music are culture-specific, thus different cultures have different kinds
of music, each of which is important and well-loved in its particular cultural context. Despite the
diversity of the tracks, they also share the commonalities that make them “music” – the structural
components of rhythm, melody, harmony, instrumentation, texture, and form. To guide us on our
journey of music exploration, it is helpful to acquire a basic vocabulary to describe these components.
Table: Chapter 3 Listening Examples
The following table indicates the music listening examples that will be provided in the
Napaster/Rhapsody Playlist for this chapter.
# Song Title Artist
1 African Dances Djembe African Drums Music
2 Arabian Dance (Coffee) –
Nutcracker Suite, Op. 71a
Orchestre Symphonique de
Montréal
3 Ave Maria Celtic Woman
4 Barra Barra Hans Zimmer
5 Fugue in A minor, BWV 895 Glenn Gould
6 Make You Feel My Love Adele
7 March – Nutcracker Suite, Op. 71a Orchestre Symphonique de
Montréal
8 Prelude in C major (WTK, Book I,
No. 1), BWV 846
Jean Bernard-Marie
9 Russian Dance (Trepak) –
Nutcracker Suite, Op. 71a
Orchestre Symphonique de
Montréal
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Introduction
In today’s world, music is with us practically everywhere. It is in our homes, it accompanies us in our
cars, and it provides background while we shop or are put on hold on the telephone. Music is central to
our entertainment, our social events, and our spiritual pursuits. Indeed, even the presence of music
departments in so many colleges and universities suggests the importance of music in contemporary
society. The pervasiveness of music combined with the global nature of today’s media ensures we are
exposed to an astonishing variety of music, including music from around the world and from nearly
every previous era. In this chapter, we will start developing a basic vocabulary for describing music so
that we can better understand both the similarities and the differences in the music we hear.
Three Broad Categories of Music
Because of the wide variety of music, it is somewhat useful to organize it into three broad categories –
Art (or “Classical”), Folk (or “Traditional”), or Popular – although none of these terms are really
satisfactory.“
Art Music
Art music” is used to describe a culture’s music that tends to be more complex theoretically and
structurally, thus often requiring notation and specialized training to transmit. It also is most generally
associated with a society’s wealthier and educated classes and is supported through the academic and
cultural institutions of the privileged. Unfortunately, “art” music suggests that this music alone has claim
to the creative and communicative power we associate with art, which of course is not true.
Folk Music
“Folk music” is the music of the common folk that is composed by unknown musicians, performed by
amateurs and passed down in an oral tradition to successive generations of musicians who have no
formal music training. Much of this music is also referred to as “World Music,” which is a term that
refers to music outside the mainstream of Western culture, and of course this is problematic because
Western culture also has folk music. The term “folk music” has additional problems because a revival of
interest in folk music in the 20th century led to performance by trained musicians whose recordings were
disseminated by the music industry and who even started composing new music in a folk style.
Popular Music
“Popular music” is the term given to much of the music we encounter in our daily lives because this is
the main focus of the music industry’s recording and dissemination. It is called “popular music” because
these styles appeal to a large number of people. Although many popular styles do not require
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specialized training either to perform or to appreciate. Popular music as a category is sometimes
confused with its abbreviation, “pop” music, although the two terms are not interchangeable. “Pop”
music refers to a specific style within the popular music category. All three of these broad categories
are umbrella terms for many genres and styles. The chart below, for example, shows just a few of the
hundreds of genre headings and styles listed in one approach to categorizing popular music:
Table: A Sample of Popular Music Styles
The following table shows examples of popular music substyles under the main categories of Rock, Pop,
and Electronic.
Rock Pop Electronic 2 Tone punk
Alternative Rock
Bisrock
Black metal
Christian rock
Cowpunk
Crunkcore
Djent
Emo
Folk rock
Gothic metal
Psychedelic rock
Rockabilly
Shock rock
Thrash metal
Zeuhl
Baroque Pop
Bubblegum Pop
Dance-pop
Europop
Christian Pop
Operatic Pop
Power Pop
Sophisti-pop
Synthpop
Space Age Pop
Sunshine Pop
Teen Pop
Ambient
Breakbeat
Chiptune
Disco
Downtempo
Drum and Bass
Electro Acoustic
Electro Industrial
Eurodance
Hi-NRG
House
Industrial
Post-Disco
Progressive
Music
Techno
Trance
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Music’s Structural Characteristics
While there are many different kinds of music, all music genres and styles share similar structural
elements. This is what makes them “music.” Regardless of the style, all music is made up of some
combination (or conscious exclusion) of rhythm, pitch, melody, harmony, texture, instrumentation, and
form. Indeed, it is the special and unique way a style assembles these building blocks or structural
characteristics that make each style unique. So that we are better able to describe and discuss music, it
is helpful to know the basics of this vocabulary.
Music as Organized Sound
At its most fundamental level, music is organized sound. Sound can be described by three elements:
dynamic level, pitch, and timbre.
Dynamic Level
Dynamic level is the easiest to understand, as it simply refers to how loud or soft the sound is. Some
music can be consistently loud (a highly amplified heavy metal concert), some consistently soft (sacred
chant), and some uses a wide range of dynamic levels (a classical symphony).
Pitch
More complicated than dynamic level is pitch, which is a term used to identify how high or low the
sound is. Acoustically, pitch is a certain number of vibrations per second, called the frequency. When
we sing, strike a drum, or pluck a guitar string we are starting some medium vibrating, and the more
frequent the vibrations, the higher the pitch. If you look at a guitar, you see that the strings range in
thickness. The thicker the guitar string, the slower it vibrates and the lower the pitch.
Every musical system has its own culturally defined set of pitches. Music in the United States is based on
a European pitch system, which traditionally consists of the group of 12 equidistant tones that divide up
the octave (the same pitch at different levels of high or low). The pitches are called by letter names from
A to G. To recognize how pitch systems in music from around the world are different, we need to
understand intervals.
Intervals is the term used to describe the distance between pitches. Intervals can be measured in units
called cents, with 1200 cents per octave (the repetition of the same pitch but at different levels of high
or low, which in Western music is eight pitch names apart).
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The typical intervals of Western music are multiples of 100 cents, but in other musical cultures, intervals
that are other combinations of cents, such as 50, 150, and 240, are also found. One of the striking
characteristics of African American music is the way musicians expand the repertoire of conventional
Western pitches with notes in between the pitches (expressed, for example, in the “blue” notes
achieved by a guitarist bending a string or a singer sliding up to the note). This approach comes from the
African tradition of using different pitches and smaller intervals than those used in Western music.
There is another method for measuring intervals in Western music. In the Western pitch system, the
distance between the pitches A and B is called the interval of a “second” because these pitches are two
consecutive pitches apart. The distance between the pitches A and C is called the interval of a “third”
because the distance between these pitches is three consecutive pitches. Sometimes melodies are
described in terms of their interval range. For example, the pitches in many European folk songs and
Native American melodies span an interval of a fifth (creating a melody with a narrow range) while a jazz
melody might span an interval of a twelfth (a much wider range).
Timbre
Even though sounds created by a guitar or voice may have the same dynamic level and pitch, each
sound has a distinctly different quality. Timbre is the term used to describe the differences in the quality
of the sound. Timbre is determined by the unique characteristics of whatever is producing the sound,
and because sound sources vary so much, timbre is extremely complex. Most listeners can distinguish
between the timbres of a human voice and a guitar, but more expert listeners can discriminate between
voices themselves (Adele versus Amy Winehouse) and types of guitar (a Martin versus a Gibson). We will
return to timbre when we discuss instrumentation. As with other structural elements, timbre
preferences can be culturally based. For example, some cultures prefer a style of singing in which the
throat is very tight while others prefer the throat to be very relaxed – each style produces quite
different vocal timbres.
Rhythm
Rhythm, the arrangement of long and short sounds, is one of the most basic ways sound is organized
into music. Although this sense of motion is accomplished through a variety of means, one of the most
elemental is the pulse, which is also called “the beat.” When we listen to music and tap our foot, we are
tapping to the beat. In most styles of music that we listen to, these beats are further organized into
groups of predictable patterns of strong and weak beats called meters. Generally, meters come in one of
three categories: duple, triple, and quadruple. Duple meter organizes the beats into recurring patterns
of 1 2. Triple meter organizes the beats into recurring patterns of 1 2 3. Quadruple meter organizes the
beats into recurring patterns of 1 2 3 4. In notated music, the meter is indicated at the beginning of the
piece. Because the overall beats are divided into a series of repeated beat patterns, this approach to
rhythm is called “divisive.” Whether the piece is played fast or slow – called the “tempo” – the rhythm
and meter remain the same.
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Another approach to rhythm is found, for example, in traditional Native American and African music,
where the music can be described as accumulating beats rather than dividing beats into the regular,
repeating patterns of meters. This approach is called “additive,” and the accumulation of beats rather
than division into regular patterns can create extraordinarily complex rhythms.
Whether the beats are felt as accumulating or as dividing into meters, there is another level of rhythmic
motion that exists. This is the varied duration of the individual sounds that are layered over and under
the beat, creating patterns in which some notes are shorter or longer than the basic beat. It will be
easier for me to demonstrate this and the other structural characteristics in the “Lab” where we have
real music to listen to. It is this combination of the pattern of beats, meters, and the micro-level of
different durations of long and short notes that create “rhythm” and that help propel a piece of music
forward. Sometimes musicians create interesting rhythmic effects by purposefully displacing the micro-
rhythm, putting these beats before or after the main beats of the meter. This shifting to a weak beat
rather than emphasizing the normal, strong beat pattern of the established meter is called syncopation.
Although rhythm is a fundamental building block in music in general, it is particularly pronounced in
American popular music. This is largely due to the influence of African-Americans, since rhythm is the
essential component of traditional African music. For example, the heavy syncopation in jazz is a direct
result of the fusing of European divisive and African additive rhythmic traditions that occurred early in
the 20th century.
Melody
When rhythm is combined with pitch in some logical progression and order, we have melody. Melodies
can have different qualities depending upon how they integrate these two elements. Melodies in which
the pitches generally move upward and in a slow and stately rhythmic pattern can be heard as
“soaring,” such as the melody in the final phrase of “The Star Spangled Banner” in which we sing, “Oh
say does that star spangled banner yet wave, o’re the land of the free and the home of the brave.”
Melodies can be simple, catchy and easily singable or they can be complex and require several
“hearings” to recall.
Harmony
The pitches a melody uses typically come from a scale, which consists of a series of tones in a specific
pattern of interval relationships. Some common Western scales are the major scale and the minor scale.
The different scales contribute to a melody’s character. For example the melodies for the songs “Happy
Birthday” and “Twinkle, Twinkle” are drawn from the major scale and both songs have a positive,
uplifting feeling to them. The folksong “Greensleeves” and “House of the Risin’ Sun” have a more
somber quality, largely derived from the fact that their melodies are based on the minor scale. Melodies
from non-Western cultures, such as the traditional melodies of Asians or Native Americans, use different
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scales based on different pitch systems. This, combined with different rhythm organizations, can make
these melodies sound very exotic or foreign to Western ears.
When three or more pitches are combined together, they form a chord. In any given piece these chords
are typically constructed from the same scale as the melody. There are many different kinds of chords,
ranging from simple chords (such as a three-note triad) to very complicated chords (such as a five-note
“ninth” chord, called a “ninth” because the top note is an interval of a ninth away from the root of the
chord). A simple piece or song such as a European folksong will often have a few simple chords, and long
sections of the melody will be constructed over the same chord. A more complex piece such as a jazz
tune will have many complicated chords, and these chords will change very rapidly. Thus the harmony
provides musical support to the melody, giving the piece depth and structure.
Instrumentation
The choice of the specific instruments or voices used in a performance or a composition is called the
instrumentation. Besides singing, most societies seem to produce music through four different basic
groups of instruments. These four groups are cordophones, aerophones, membranophones, and
idiophones. Cordophones are instruments that produce their sound through stretched string such as a
guitar or a piano. Aerophones are instruments that produce their sound through the blowing of air.
Aerophones include trumpet like instruments that create the sound through buzzing the lips into the
instrument (like a trumpet) and flute-like instruments that create the sound through blowing air either
into the mouthpiece (recorder) or across a hole on the instrument (transverse flute). Mebranophones
are instruments that produce tone through a stretched skin or membrane, and are primarily drums.
Idiophones are instruments that create the sound through the resonating of the body of the instrument
itself, such as castanets and the marimba. Idiophone instruments can be struck, scraped, or rattled. In
the Twentieth century, we have added a fifth category of instruments called electronophones, in which
the sound is produced through electronic circuits (digital keyboards and sound synthesizers).
Texture
The combination of elements such as rhythm, melody, harmony, and instrumentation creates a piece’s
texture that can be described as thick or thin, simple or complex. Hence, folksingers accompanying
themselves on a guitar would produce a simple, thin texture. A large jazz “big band” with several
different instruments playing in a variety of groupings would produce a thick texture.
A second way of organizing and describing texture is by its combination of melody and chords. From
this perspective, a texture comes in one of four categories: monophony, heterophony, polyphony, and
homophony. Monophony is a texture that refers to a single, unaccompanied melody (such as Christian,
Buddhist, and Islamic religious chant). Heterophony refers to the simultaneous sounding of slightly
different versions of the same melody (such as would be created by a group of slaves singing a spiritual).
Polyphony is two or more melodies that are played simultaneously but are independent, although they
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may be related. This texture predominates during certain periods of European art music and is also a
distinguishing characteristic of some traditional Asian music. And finally homophony refers to a texture
in which there is a primary melody with the other melodies and voices (or instruments) providing
harmonic or chordal accompaniment. This is the texture to which we are most accustomed, and
characterizes a wide range of music traditions from European art music to Rhythm & Blues.
Texture is another important characteristic of a piece that helps us place that piece in a cultural context.
For example, early folksingers simply sang their melodies without instrumental accompaniment,
creating a monophonic texture. Later, when they accompanied themselves on guitar or banjo, they
created a homophonic texture. Still later, if they composed complex arrangements with many different
voices and instruments (such as occurred in the “Urban Folk Revival”), they created polyphony.
A third way of describing texture is associated with the way a piece is performed. Responsorial
performance (often referred to as “call and response”) is when a leader sings or plays a melody and a
group responds or answers with a melody. Direct performance texture is when a soloist or a group
performs the piece straight without alternation. Antiphonal performance is when one group alternates
with another group. For example, responsorial performance is very common in African music and this
influence can be clearly seen in the interaction between lead singer and back-up vocalists in African
American music ranging from Motown to Gospel.
Form
The overall organization of a piece of music is called its form. This is often achieved through a balance
between unity and variety. An example of form is theme and variations, where the basic theme or
melody is altered in successive versions of it. Another important form is ternary form, represented by
the folksong “Twinkle, Twinkle,” in which the first and last phrases of text have the same melody (and
incidentally, the same words):
A Twinkle, twinkle, little star how I wonder what you are
B Up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky
A Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are.
There is virtually an infinite range of possible forms, and another contributing factor to the uniqueness’
of a musical style is that different cultures tend to favor specific forms. Throughout this digital book we
will continually return to discussion of these structural characteristics as we attempt to describe and
understand the unique qualities that characterize each musical style.
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Putting It All Together:
Make You Feel My Love recorded by Adele
Now let’s pull multiple components together as we listen to a song from Adele’s first album, 19. Adele’s
full name is Adele Laurie Blue Adkins and she was born in England in 1988 to an unwed mother and soon
abandoned by her father. She attended and graduated from the BRIT School for Performing Arts and
Technology, where she received vigorous training in music theory, ethnomusicology (the study of non-
Western music), and the history of Western Art/Classical music as well as 20th and 21st century Popular
music. 19 is her debut album, and it was released in 2008. It has been a huge commercial and critical
success, garnering her several Grammy Awards.
Rhythm: The rhythm is a steady, slow quadruple meter.
Melody: The melody is simple, and you might notice that it is made up primarily of several slightly
modified versions of the same phrase. If you are particularly sensitive to the conventions of Western
European-based harmonic structures, you might notice that the note at the end of the phrase “When
the rain is blowing in your face” is unexpected – but that’s art! (Based on the harmonic progression,
which moves from the I to the V chord, one expects the 5th of the V chord, which is a C, and
instead the note is the tonic note of Bb, which isn’t in the chord and thus is dissonant.)
Harmony: The harmony is basic Bb Major with the primary triads (I, IV, and V) but also some more
interesting chords (including a brief modulation to the key of the dominant, F, during the Bridge) and
the inclusion of additional notes to give the harmony complexity and depth.
Texture: The song is in homophonic texture, with Adele’s voice singing the main melody.
Instrumentation: The instrumentation is primarily her voice accompanied by acoustic piano (a
cordophone) but she also adds in other instruments later, particularly string instruments (also
cordophones, specifically Western Art/Classical cellos, violins, and violas).
Form: The form is essentially the same as Tchaikovsky’s “Trepak” that we will study in the Apply (Lab),
and it is represented by AABA. In popular music, the “B” section is called the “Bridge.”
Now listen to it a second time use the timing guide below to follow the form:
Intro :0 Acoustic piano playing in quadruple meter going through the basic harmonic progression. (8 bars)
A :25 She describes the storm with its wind and rain…. (8 bars)
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A :50 She sings about the evening shadows… (8 bars)
B 1:15 She describes how she knows the person hasn’t yet made up their mind… (8 bars) Also called the bridge.
A 1:40 She says what she would endure for the person she loves… (8 bars)
Break 2:05 This instrumental section is often called “the break” because it is a break from the vocal part; it typically (and also in this case) goes through the same basic harmonic progression. (8 bars)
B 2:31 She references the storm again…(8 bars)
A 2:55 She assures her love how happy she can make them… (8 bars)
Conclusion
Music is universal to humanity and has been found in all known societies. All music is comprised of some
combination (or conscious exclusion) of the same building blocks or structural characteristics, but there
are many different genres and styles of music. Each style is defined by its unique handling of structural
characteristics – the typical manner in which that style treats rhythm, melody, harmony, form, texture,
and instrumentation. In this chapter I tried to introduce this vocabulary, and depending upon your
background, you may at this point think “duh!” (been there, done that) or “aaaaargh!” (I haven’t a clue
what you’re talking about). If you are in the first group, then my intention is to deepen your
appreciation and knowledge of the ways in which these structural characteristics are used in music in
the remaining chapters. If you are in the second group, then remember that this is an introductory
course designed for students with no background in music, so don’t worry, it will start making more
sense as we continue to elaborate on and apply these basics in the subsequent chapters. The “Lab,”
especially, may help you make the connections between the words above and actual music. So once
again welcome, and I’m delighted you have chosen to take this musical journey with me.
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References
The basis of this chapter was initially published in Crossroads: The Multicultural Roots of America’s
Popular Music, 2nd edition by Barkley, E.F. (New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2010). If you have any concerns
or corrections regarding content or references, please contact Web Support who will in turn contact me.
Thank you. EFB
Side Trip: Where Did Music Come From?
No one really knows where music came from, and just as there are different culture-specific musical
styles, so are there different cultural ideas regarding the origins of music. Because of music’s close
connection to language, some people speculate that early in human history the two were the same. In
certain traditional African cultures, it is believed that music came first, and that it is through the drum
that people learned to speak. In some Native American cultures, music is thought to exist in the cosmos,
and it is brought into the human world through dreams. In the philosophy of the Hindus, the creator
placed music in the four sacred writings to be interpreted and revealed to regular people by austere
monks known as Munis.
In Hebrew culture, which in turn served as the basis for the Christian faith that has exerted such a strong
influence on Western culture, music is linked to Cain, the “bad” son of the first two humans, Adam and
Eve. Seven generations later, Cain’s descendant Jubal was described as the father of musicians (“father
of all such as handle the lyre and pipe” in Genesis 4:17-21). This connection of music with Cain’s
descendants is more than of just passing historical interest because Cain killed his brother, Abel, and
was thus seen as being evil. The biblical connection between music and evil created a tension for later
Christian scholars that was very difficult to resolve. Where music came from originally, and how
musicians come up with new music today, continues to be a question to ponder.