Music and Meaning

Details

When:

Where: The Hampton Inn

Cost: $165.00 for 6 session(s)

Type: In Person

Category:

• Humanities Courses
• Music & Theatre

Instructor: a musical researcher, lecturer, and documentary filmmaker.

Connecting with Music in our Lives and Our Culture

Music touches our lives in many ways, and on many levels – physically, emotionally, technologically and culturally. How can we better understand music’s place in our world, and in the process learn a bit about the important role that music has played in our own lives? This series will examine music in many forms, from the perspectives of scholarly research, cultural anthropology and documentary filmmaking.

Week 1: The Three Big Questions
Want to understand music and its role in our world? To do so, we only really need to ask three basic questions, which all of us can answer. Then, we’ll examine these questions more deeply in a presentation on the music of West Africa.

Week 2: Musical Universals…and a Near-Universal Musical Experience
Is music really a “universal language”, and why or why not? What about that song in your head that won’t go away? (It’s called an “ear worm”, and Dan will share his UA-funded research and documentary film on the subject.)

Weeks 3-4: Rock ‘n’ Roll, from Infancy to Adolescence
These two weeks will chronicle rock ‘n’ roll’s early years, from its birth to a pivotal moment when the genre truly matured on the global stage. And, we’ll learn about Zoom Records, a tiny 1950s Tucson record label, through Dan’s award-winning documentary film.

Week 5: The Shape of the Song
What’s the “architecture” of a piece of music, and how does it reveal and support the composer’s musical and lyrical intent? We’ll look at musical forms, from blues to pop to classical, as well as some challenging musical forms from indigenous cultures.

Week 6: Jazz Conventions
Great jazz musicians utilize a palette of “conventions” that make their performances sparkle. How can we recognize and understand them, to become more knowledgeable and more appreciative jazz listeners? Finally, we’ll wrap up the six-week series by tying together the “musical threads” we’ve explored and sharing our deeper musical understandings.