This course is based on the premise that music means something, that it is a discourse. We will listen to how and why music makes us understand, know, feel, and be in the world. Music shapes and is shaped by social formations, human consciousness, identities, and attitudes towards the self and others; it institutes, reinforces, sculpts, and challenges relations of power; its produces affects, emotions, desires, erotics, and intoxications. For this reason, the course is not a course in music appreciation, or a survey of any particular period or genre. Instead, the course is organized around a series of interlocking themes and questions: What is the nature of music? What counts as music (vs. "noise")? What function does music have in our lives? What is the relation between music and the institutions within which it is produced, distributed, and received? How and it what forms does music's "message" come to us? What is music's relation to language and images? Is music an art, a product (a commodity), or both? Is there good and bad music? Why is some music considered socially beneficial and some socially dangerous?
Through the semester we will listen to, read about, discuss, think, and interpret music from a wide range of periods, areas, artists, and genres. The overarching themes include: capitalism and commodification, representation, difference, and appropriation, subjectivity and identity, gender, race, and cultural hierarchy, judgement and taste. Periods, genres, and artists include: country music, Beethoven, Dolly Parton, Beyoncé, jazz, renaissance music, hip hop, world music, castratos, auto-tune, Tanya Tagaq, narcocorridos... Topics include: music videos, censorship of music, music and the environment, music and authenticity, music technology. Readings include: Pauline Oliveros, Jacques Attali, Theodor Adorno, Richard Leppert, Rob Wegman, Farah Jasmine Griffin, Steven Feld, Alexander Rehding, Martha Feldman, Susan McClary.