American Strings: Old Time and Bluegrass

American Strings: Old Time and Bluegrass is a Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies course taught by Rebecca Miller.

This course satisfies Division I requirements.

Course Description
This course focuses on American southern old-time string band music, bluegrass, and early country song. We will draw on cultural theory to explore the growth of these musics throughout the 20th century as well as the influences of African-American musical expression, gender, and musical revivalism. We will consider old time and bluegrass both from an historical perspective and ethnographically as vital forms in communities today. The course will thus include an off campus fieldwork/community project, weekly reading and listening assignments, several short written assignments, and a final paper. This course will also have a performance component: students will learn to play the music by ear and develop a repertoire of traditional song and dance music. Prior experience with old time and bluegrass is not necessary, but a basic working knowledge of one of the following instruments is required: fiddle (violin), banjo, guitar, upright bass, mandolin, harmonica, and other appropriate instruments.This course satisfies the Division I distribution requirement.

Learning Goals

 * Expressive
 * Multi-Cultural
 * Writing