Some Long-Range Historical Issues and Topics

for MUS 213M, 213N, 230L 2019-2020: Dell’Antonio / Maggart / Carson

Music and Society

Ø What institutions (patrons, audiences, schools, etc) affect a musician’s life and work? What kinds of
cultural categories (for example, distinctions between “high” and “low” culture, or between
“sacred” and “secular” styles, issues of ethics, systems of production and consumption or
commodification) shape these institutions?
Ø How do musicians respond to these institutions and cultural values (whether consciously or not,
by compliance or by opposition)? How are these responses manifest in the music, formally and
programmatically?
Ø How have the professional obligations/expectations, ethical considerations, etc of musicians
changed over time as their institutions have developed?

Status and Subjectivity

Ø What is the social (or class) status of the various roles (composer, performer, patron, teacher –
others?) in a musical tradition? How does the gender (or sexuality) of the individuals or groups
contribute to that status? How have the gendered identities of certain roles/groups (conductors,
patrons, etc.) created hierarchies within the musical community? How do the race/ethnicity,
religion, and/or nation of the individuals/groups intersect with this system? What other identity
factors might apply?
Ø Does the (social, gender, racial/ethnic, religious, etc) identity of a musician influence their creative
output? Does an individual’s age or disability (whether acquired or by birth) shape creativity or
identity/status? In what situations would these questions be crucial, and in which ones might they
be problematic?

Music and Ideas

Ø How are various aspects of musical life (performance, composition, writing about music,
aesthetics, teaching, others?) related to thinking and practices in the other arts (and other cultural
trends) in a particular time or place?
Ø How has musicians’ receptivity to other aspects of their culture changed depending on time and
location? How do patrons / audiences and their cultural interests relate to this?
Ø How has the definition of music evolved over time? How do these different definitions reflect
their times’ cultural values? How have definitions of music intersected with those of silence,
sound, and noise?

Genre: Function and Redefinition

Ø What is the original purpose (sacred, political, aesthetic, other?) of a particular musical work, style,
tradition? How does the original purpose determine the musical characteristics? How (and what) did
those characteristics communicate, to whom, and why?
Ø Are those characteristics changed when the work (style, tradition) is used for a different purpose
(in a different time or place)? If so, how, and if not, why not?
Performance, Notation and the “Work-Concept”
Ø What information does a particular type of musical notation record, and what does it leave to the
performer? In what ways is notation prescriptive, and in what ways descriptive? How does this
balance change between various systems?
Ø How “fixed” is a musical work in a given historical context? What elements of a piece can be
changed (instrumentation, repetition, the “notes themselves”) while the work remains the
“same”? Who gets to decide?
Ø How important (to the musicians and/or their institutions) is it to determine the “authentic”
version of a work, and the “correct” authorship?
Ø What is the role of a modern performer in all this? How “faithful” do we want/need to be to the
“original” in our modern performances? What does being “faithful” mean, what is the “original”?

Technology and Technique

Ø How do technologies of instrumental construction (and changes in locations for music-making)
change the soundscape resources available to musicians? How do techniques of vocal or
instrumental performance change and why? How do technologies, performing techniques, and
locations shape repertories and styles?
Ø How do distribution techniques (manuscript, print, sound recording, internet…) shape
repertories, styles, and audiences?

Individuality, Originality, Innovation, and Tradition

Ø How important is it for a musician to put an “individual” stamp on a style, performance, or
composition? How much is “original” and how much is “borrowed” (and in what manner) from
previous models, and how much borrowing is considered appropriate?
Ø What are the purposes (both stated and implied) of an “original or “new” musical trend? Why is
it important that it be understood as “new”? How do musicians define the “new” in relationship
to the “traditional”? What institutions facilitate (and/or resist) musical-cultural change?

Complexity and Simplicity

Ø Why do musicians and their institutions prefer simplicity over complexity (or the reverse) in their
musical approach at a particular time and place?
Ø How do we define the two categories?

Historiography and Reception

Ø How have the stories musicians (and their institutions) have told about themselves and their
predecessors shaped their musical practices, and influenced the success or failure of individuals or
traditions? How have they defined the repertories that have been held up as “models” (the
“canon”)?
Ø How have these stories changed through time in the hands of biographers and historians, and
how has that influenced later audiences (“reception history”)?
Ø How have musicians’ images and reputations been shaped through the history of their reception,
to the present day?

…. What other issues can you find that cross historical / regional traditions?