Fall 2000

Music 241. Proseminar in Musicology: Guillaume Du Fay and Song Traditions of the Fifteenth Century. Professors Gallagher and Nádas.

Guillaume Du Fay (1397-1474) is a seminal figure in the development of secular music in the fifteenth century. His more than eighty songs, composed over a period of some thirty years, reflect and contribute to the broad stylistic changes that occurred in song writing during his lifetime. We shall begin by examining musical styles in Italy and France in the works of composers active during the decades immediately following the death of Francesco Landini (1397), with an emphasis on primary sources, repertories, and analytical issues. Much of the term will be taken up with close consideration of issues raised in recent publications concerning the songs of Du Fay and his contemporaries. Topics to be discussed include the problem of defining Du Fay's "late" style, and the significance of his songs for the important compositional developments of the 1450s and 1460s. The basic text, David Fallows' Dufay (2nd ed., 1987), will be augmented with further readings and analyses. Class projects and individual presentations.

Music 245. Proseminar: Issues of Authenticity in Country Music. Professor Neal.

Throughout this century, country music has claimed authenticity as a central feature of its identity. This perception, however, calls into question the cyclic nature of country music's stylistic evolution, the transformations in its commercial climates and marketing innovations, and the ongoing ingenuity of its artists. On the one hand, issues of authenticity offer interpretations that bear limiting viewpoints based on historical assimilation and stylistic pedigree. On the other hand, such concerns arguably have become an ascribed narrative worthy of investigation within the country music community. This course will analyze country songs in light of these varying, if not conflicting, ideas of authentic practice. Readings will include Curtis Ellison, Joli Jensen, George Lewis, Richard Peterson, and Charles Wolfe. Further bibliography will focus on essays in popular music analysis. Students will prepare readings for class discussion, complete short writings, transcriptions, and analyses, and produce a final research project.

Music 249. Witnessing Sound: Readings in Ethnomusicology. Professor Weiss.

Ethnomusicology occupies the intellectual space between anthropology and music history. Ethnomusicologists draw on methodologies and paradigms from each of these fields in their research and writing traditions. Originally a product of colonialism, ethnomusicology is now one ancestor, among many, to world tourism, globalization, and the discourses on postmodernity and postcoloniality. Using ethnography as our primary resource, in this course we will adopt a contextual and historiographic approach to understanding the major trends in the development of the field.