1600 – 1960: Op/Jazz/Pop

1600 – 1960: Op/Jazz/Pop

1600 - 1960: Op/Jazz/Pop continues the investigation of the question from Pacific Seminar I "What is a Good Society?" through exploration of the cultural, musical, and artistic climate in three different historical contexts. This course will explore different ways of knowing, critical thinking, and the evaluation of information.  It will then focus on three different musical and historical contexts: opera in the 17th century, the transition from "Swing" dance-oriented music to bebop from 1945 to 1960, and popular music from 1960 to the early 1970's.  The choices made about how music is constructed and realized - compositional technique, instrumentation, venue, and performance practice -- are influenced by cultural, social, historical, economic, and political conditions.  How we know things to be true and the quality of information about any given topic are subject to the same influences.  In order to illustrate the dynamics of cultural, social, economic, and political influence on aesthetic activity, a variety of artistic products will be used as examples - images of paintings and other artwork, musical notation, as well as audio and film clips.