Lecture: 4 hours per week
- Lecture and class discussion, with focus on active listening to music;
- Viewing of video programs on music;
- Attendance at live concert performance(s);
- Collaborative learning through student presentation(s).
Selected case studies for each decade, drawn from the following styles, artists and events:
1. Roots of Rock ’n’ Roll to 1950
Delta Blues; Gospel; Country; Ragtime & Dixie; The Musical Legacies of Slavery; The Depression; The Great Migration & The Spread of the Blues; Electric Blues
The Legacy of Tin Pan Alley and the Music Industry Business Model
2. 1950s
Rock ’n’ Roll; Rockabilly; Skiffle; Country; Rhythm & Blues
Post WW2 Affluence and the Emergence of the Teen Market
3. 1960s
Folk Revival and Protest Songs; The Rise of the Canadian Singer-Songwriter; The British Invasion
The Civil Rights Movement; From Race Records to Motown; Counterculture and Psychedelia; Drug Culture; Pop Art and the New York Scene; Hippies & Beatniks
4. 1970s
The Art of the Mixing Board (Dub); Funk; Jazz Fusion; Disco; Rock Music (Glam, Prog, Metal); Punk; New Wave
Challenging Gender Stereotypes; Punk and the Birth of the Indie Scene; Disaffected Youth; Independent Record Labels; Rock Against Racism
5. 1980s
Hip Hop; Rap; Electro; Jamaican Dancehall; Indie; Mainstream Pop; Synth Pop
Digital Technology; Cell Phones; MTV
6. 1990s
Grunge; Britpop; Tribute Bands; Urban; Trance; Acid House; Jungle; Drum & Bass; Trip Hop; Pop Punk; Nu Metal; Trance; Techno; Canadian Singer-Songwriters
Napster; Globalization; Digital Recording; The Industry Fights Back
7. 2000s
Nu-Metal; Post Grunge; Singer-Songwriter; Alt Country; Unplugged
Digital Distribution; Bedroom Producers; The DIY Industry; The Impact of Declining Album Sales
8. 2010s
Dubstep; EDM in North America; Indie; Pop
Streaming; YouTube Hits; Synchronization and New Business Models
At the end of the course the successful student will have developed:
- Awareness of the social factors affecting the development of popular music (e.g. technology, migration, economics and demographics) and of the role of popular music in driving social change;
- Vocabulary to describe musical and sonic characteristics of popular music and evolving production techniques;
- Critical listening skills, enabling detailed discussion of production values, aesthetics and song structure.
Assessment will be based on course objectives and will be carried out in accordance with the Douglas College Evaluation Policy. Instructors may use a student's record of attendance as part of the student's graded performance. This will be clearly defined in the course outline.
An example grading scheme is as follows:
Annotated Timeline with Playlist 10%
Reviews of Live Concerts/Videos 30%
Presentation 25%
Weekly Listening and/or Reading Quizzes 20%
Final Examination 15%
_________
Total: 100%
A recent edition of a text such as:
Szatmay, David P. and Ripley, Lynsay. Rocking in Time: A Social History of Rock’n’Roll. Canadian Edition. Pearson.
None
None
None