Black Atlantic Music

The cultural theorist (and music lover) Paul Gilroy describes the Black Atlantic as a space where people, sounds, styles, and politic philosophies are emergent, on the move, and developing across national boundaries.Focusing onthe African diaspora, Gilroy challenges us to think about Africa not just as a source of cultural material for music in the Americas (via the transatlantic slave trade) but as a node in a great network of cultural exchange. Beyond focusing on the roots of African diaspora cultures, Gilroy suggests we ought to take an interest in the routes along which culture travels and develops.

This course examines diverse musical cultures from the Black Atlantic by studying how histories of slavery, colonialism, diasporic imagination, social movements, and networks of cultural exchange gave them life. By tracing musical and political histories through a series of case studies routed through the diaspora, this course will work to develop a theory of “the Black Atlantic” as a sonic geography. 

After establishing a foundation in the key historical forces leading to the construction of the African diaspora, students will explore case studies related to the development of local and transnational musical styles. We will look at the key role the international music industry plays in both creating racialized categories for sound and in generating new musical forms across the Atlantic. Middle weeks of the semester will be concerned with flows of political solidarity and music throughout the diaspora, from New York to Havana to Kinshasa and Dakar. Later weeks will focus on Afrofuturism, carnival traditions in the Caribbean, and the emergence of hip-hop as a global force. 

Equal weight in the course will be given to reading, listening, and writing as valuable modes of interacting with music. Students will engage closely with reading and listening assignments through in-class discussion and weekly reflections. At the mid-point of the trimester, we will undertake a collaborative wiring project focused on generating a succinct narrative that summarizes the Black Atlantic for an audience new to the concept. At the close of the term each student will produce a podcast exploring the music, culture, history, and politics of a particular black Atlantic musical system or artist of their choice. Each student will write a narrative to accompany recorded sound examples in the finished podcast.

Throughout the course of the semester, students will learn to listen more closely to sound, and will develop a critical capacity for relating these sounds to the political and social worlds from which they emerge. Turning our attention back and forth between the local and the global, Black Atlantic Music is a window into how music takes shape in the context of culture, politics, and history. 

Music Ensemble: African Liberation

As newly independent African nations claimed their freedom from colonial rule, an effort was underway to define the sound of these nations. State-sponsored bands likes Bembeya Jazz and Balla et ses Balladins in Guinea developed a sound that announced Guinea as a modern nation. Their music drew heavily from the sounds of Cuban son, entering the newly independent nation into an African diasporic discourse that signaled alliances with international Marxist movements. In 1977 Fela Kuti released the track “Colonial Mentality,” a song that forcefully argued that even seventeen years into Nigeria’s independence from colonial rule, euro-centric mindsets continued to haunt Nigerian politics. That same year, Kalakuta, Kuti’s autonomous communal compound was burned to the ground after an assault by Nigerian soldiers. In 1987, Hugh Masekela released the track “Bring Him Back Home (Nelson Mandela)” on his album Tomorrow. The song caught fire as an anthem of the anti-apartheid movement that would see the political prisoner Mandela freed in 1990 and inaugurated as President in 1994. This practice-based music course will sharpen students’ music performance skills as they engage in the critical study of popular music from the era of African independence. Students will work to perform a musical repertoire drawn from this time period, including the artists listed above as well as Miriam Makeba, Franco Luambo, E.T. Mensah, The Rail Band, OK Jazz, Manu Dibango, and more.

In addition to rehearsing and performing a selection of songs, students will engage with reading, listening, and viewing that informs a historical understanding of how music became a venue for contesting visions for post-colonial Africa. In addition to the practice-based research involved in learning a musical repertoire, students will undertake a research project examining the life of an artist who helped shape the sound of post-colonial Africa (sounds that often resonated out into the diaspora). The course will take place in two lab sessions each week that will be split between rehearsal and academic study/analysis. There will also be an occasional Wednesday evening session reserved for film screenings or independent rehearsal time.

 Participants will be assessed based on attendance and participation in class, individual practice and preparedness, the research project, and map quizzes on the African continent. This Intermediate/Advanced ensemble course is open to students who play an instrument or sing. To achieve a workable balance of instruments, the course will be by permission of instructor. Students wishing to take the course should email a brief statement to the instructor describing their musical practice and what they hope to get out of the course. This class will be graded pass/fail by default, but students may also choose to take the course for a letter grade if they wish. 

Jazz Manouche

During the 1930s, the French-Romani guitarist Django Reinhardt launched a new musical style. Combining the traditional music of his Romani heritage with French bal-musettes and the Swing music storming Europe from the other side of the Atlantic, Reinhardt pioneered a sound that came to be known as “Gypsy Jazz,” “Jazz Manouche” or “Hot Club Jazz.” This class will focus on the rich musical repertoire flowing from this history as we work to practice, perform, and learn about its sounds and histories. A practice-based course organized around learning and performing the music, it will treat a series of compositions as entry points for lessons in jazz improvisation, understanding harmonic motion, chord voicing, and rhythmic awareness (swing, waltz, bossa, bolero, etc.). In addition to practice-based work, students will also learn about the histories of Romani (Sinti) migration across Europe and the genealogies of musicians as they relate to the development of Jazz Manouche. Students will read texts concerning Django Reinhardt and other key figures and will write a final paper that reflects research into the people, places, and sounds associated with this music. Assessment will be based on class participation, weekly practice logs, and the final paper/project. The course is designed for students with a working knowledge of an acoustic instrument (guitar, strings, bass, percussion, accordion, mandolin, woodwinds, brass, percussion, etc.). The class will be held largely outdoors, so we cannot accommodate piano or electric instruments. Permission of instructor is required to ensure a workable balance of instruments.

Shellac to Spotify: 100 Years of Recorded Music

Around one hundred and fifty years ago people’s relationship to sound and listening began to fundamentally change. No longer just an ephemeral phenomenon, sound became a thing that could be captured, stored, and played back. The first sound recording technology, the Edison Tin Foil Phonograph, induced a minor social panic; people described being unsettled by the uncanny experience of listening to voices from the past. We now take this ability to listen and re-listen to events from the past for granted as we stream music into our earbuds, enjoy the heightened emotions brought on by a film or television score, or feel our bodies resonate with rumbling bass frequencies at a dance party. Shellac to Spotify: 100 Years of Recorded Music explores how music and technology have coevolved over the past hundred years to shape our relationships to sound, music, and listening. We will approach these questions with both hands-on assignment and from the perspectives of the academic fields of ethnomusicology and sound studies. Students will experiment with music technologies: creating an analog cassette mix tape, soldering together a theremin, composing with analog synthesizers, conducting low-power radio transmissions, experimenting with autotune and digital sequencers, exploring algorithmic music composition, and learning the basics of sound recording and editing in a digital audio workstation (DAW). In addition to weekly hands-on activities, students will read academic texts exploring how the intersection of music and technology reflect and condition social values, norms, and ways of knowing the world. For a final project, each student will create a short podcast that examines a musician, song, or music technology in historical and social context. Student assessment will be based on attendance, the completion and thoroughness of assignments and projects, participation in seminar discussions, and the end-of-term podcast project.

Sound Studies Practicum

How are artists and scholars of sound engaging various crises in the anthropocene? What are the possibilities and limitations of responding to or representing a place through sound recording and playback? How do contemporary composers and sound artists engage place-specific material in their work? This practice-based course examines the interdisciplinary field of sound studies through close reading, listening, and hands-on (ears-on?) work in sound. Students will create place-based recording projects and site-specific sound installations that draw on local fieldwork excursions around Frenchman Bay, as well as on archival research connected to the Maine Sound and Story Archive and others. Students will sharpen skills in field recording, audio editing, multi-channel sound mixing and presentation, artistic collaboration, and building sonic-rich soundscapes as they work to create immersive sound art projects. This class will work to expand the narrative podcast format, seeking more abstract and layered forms that draw on research and storytelling to help audiences sense a place or a concept through the experience of sound. The course will examine key readings in the field of sound studies, and investigate the practice of sound artists working at the intersections of sound and climate change, sound and social (in)justice, the repatriation of sound recordings, sound and ethnographic practice, and more. Students must have prior experience recording and editing sound, and a willingness to collaborate with their peers to synthesize and realize their ideas. This course will involve fieldwork excursions outside of class time. Evaluation will be based on class participation, engagement with class projects and assignments, and the demonstration of learning in relationship to course content.

Dissecting Popular Music

Can you trace the anatomy of a catchy song? How does the form and structure of music compare across culture and style? How does sound recording dramatize a song on the sonic stage of headphones, night club sound systems, and car stereos? This practice-based course will serve as an introduction to the fields of ethnomusicology and popular music studies while strengthening musicianship and critical listening skills. Students will study various modes of dissecting recorded performances of popular music across divergent music genres as they engage in critical listening, discussion, and audio production. In our weekly classroom sessions, students will develop critical listening skills, including hearing component parts of a sound mix (identifying instruments, voices, and their placement in the stereo field), identifying frequencies, recognizing the use of processing effects, describing song form and arrangement techniques, and hearing musical phenomena such as melodic contour, intervals, tonality/chords, time signatures, rhythmic subdivision, polyrhythm, etc. Students will work to articulate what they value about recorded performances through written reflections and presentations in class. In the studio, we will dissect the instrumental and vocal parts of several pieces of music to understand how the components conspire to create an overall effect. For a final project, students will create a short podcast-essay that dissects a recorded performance of their choosing. Evaluation will be based on class participation, completion of written reflections, the final project, and class presentations.

Brazilian Percussion Ensemble

Samba is one of music’s great spectacles – loud, coordinated, precise, and kinetic. The music is equally at home on the stage and in the street. All are welcome to participate in COA’s samba percussion ensemble. The individual percussion parts range in complexity so the music suits a wide range of skills and levels of experience. The musical repertoire for the ensemble will be developed in coordination with Caique Vidal, a Brazilian percussionist who will visit the class (virtually) on a few occasions to offer perspective and insights drawn from his experience with the music. Alongside rehearsal and performance, students will study the history of samba music in Brazil. We will read Barbara Browning’s Samba: Resistance in Motion and also discuss what the music’s recontextualization to a college campus in Maine might mean for its performers and listeners. The class will include a weekend field trip to the HONK! festival in Boston.

Music and Narrative Media

How does music work to amplify the meaning and motivation of narrative artwork? Music for Narrative Media is a practice-based course focused on creating music for narrative forms such as theater, film, and podcasts. The class will open with critical listening-viewing of various narrative media to analyze how music supports storytelling. Each member of the class will carry out structured weekly assignments in music composition. These will typically consist of creating a series of brief musical sketches that respond to a narrative prompt. Later in the term, pieces will be refined in increasing depth. Throughout the term, we will create music with the goal of a culminating project in mind. Student assessment will be based on the completion and thoroughness of assigned projects, participation in critique/feedback sessions, and a mid-term project profiling a composer/sound artist. Working knowledge of an instrument (acoustic, electric, or electronic) is a prerequisite, but you need not have composed music before. You will need to take musical risks and trust in the dynamics of group collaboration and revision.

Arts and the Anthropocene

Arts and the Anthropocene explores how visual, theatrical, and sonic arts can play a role in
educating publics, provoking action, and imagining resilient futures in the era of the
Anthropocene. We will start by exploring how both scientists and artists of all stripes have sought
to address social and ecological crises and entanglements. Students will then design and execute art
projects that speak directly to a specific instance of how human and ecological communities have
been transformed in the Anthropocene. Ideally this course would be co-taught with an
environmental scientist.

Music and Afrofuturism

Reynaldo Anderson writes, “Black speculative art is a creative, aesthetic practice that integrates Afrodiasporic or African metaphysics with science or technology. It essentially seeks to interpret, engage, design, or alter reality for the re-imagination of the past, the contested present, and act as a catalyst for the future.” This class takes music as a window into black speculative arts traditions, Afrofuturism, and the black radical imagination more broadly. We will engage a vibrant array of Black Studies and Ethnomusicology scholarship as we delve into the work of artists such as John Coltrane, Sun Ra, George Clinton, Milfred Graves, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Janelle Monae, Kendrick Lamar, and more. Equal weight in the course will be given to reading, listening, and writing as valuable modes of interacting with music. Students will engage closely with reading and listening assignments through in-class discussion and weekly reflections. Students will conduct research to create two short presentations in class that offer perspective on particular Afrofuturist artworks (or soundworks). The term will culminate in self-designed final papers or projects that either examine or draw inspiration from the work of class.  

Futurity: A Production Monster Course

This winter, students will collaboratively research and stage a production of César Alvarez and the Lisps’ Futurity (2015), a work of musical theater about two people dreaming of a technological utopia during one of the darkest periods of American history. The musical looks back to the Civil War to raise contemporary questions about the role of technology in visions for liberation. The “thinking machine” at the center of Futurity asks us to consider the merger of human and machine in today’s technological age. Our staging of the production will benefit from the collaboration of electroacoustic sculptor Mark Dixon, whose novel musical instruments will feature in the role of the “Steam Brain,” the “thinking machine” that Futurity’s protagonists hope will bring an end to human suffering. Evaluation will be based on demonstrated engagement with all course elements and materials, and successful navigation of and contribution to the shared production process. Students interested in being a part of the performing ensemble (actors, singers, musicians), and/or those interested in set, lighting and sound design, stage management, dramaturgy, etc. are encouraged to apply. To be considered, students must complete the questionnaire provided via email by the end of week 5, Fall term. This intensive process will result in a run of performances at the end of the Winter term. The course counts for 3 full credits and requires a considerable time commitment.