From Vitaphone to YouTube: Popular Music and the Moving Image

This course considers American popular music as represented in audiovisual media from 1926 to the present. The relationship between the popular music industry (a commercial sphere oriented primarily towards the selling of sheet music and audio recordings) and audiovisual technologies (various screens and formats encountered in changing social and commercial contexts) will be explored along two complementary tracks: popular music performers as presented in performance-centered media and popular music as a narrative topic or resource in feature films. Three related analytical frames will shape our discussions: 1) industrial and technological history (the material conditions for the making and distribution of popular music and mov-ing images) 2) the question of "liveness" in recorded audiovisual media and 3) aesthetics of various popular music styles as translated into audiovisual forms and contexts. The course is in seminar format. The ability to read music is not required but students with music reading or transcription skills will be encouraged to draw upon these tools. Pre-requisites: graduate status or completion of a 300-level FMS or Music course and permission of the instructor. Credit 3 units. REQUIRED SCREENING TIME: Wednesdays at 4:00 p.m.
Course Attributes: EN H; BU Hum; AS HUM; FA HUM; AR HUM

From Vitaphone to YouTube: Popular Music and the Moving Image

AMERICAN CULTURE STUDIES 457A

Section A

Section 01