1. Music in African American Community Life (Focus on Music Genre)
Music plays a central role in African American community life. Please select a musical genre explored in course lectures or readings, such as the blues, spirituals, jazz, gospel, etc. Next consider the central role of your selected genre in African American community life and further elaborate upon salient musical features that define its (the genre’s) performance style. In your discussion of performance style, please address sound quality and notable aspects of delivery, as well as referencing at least five artists of the genre you have selected. Outline the historical circumstances of African American life during the time period of the genre you have selected.
2. African Elements in African American Music (Focus on Musical Characteristics)
African American music shares many foundational musical characteristics with sub-Saharan African music. Discuss the relationship between African and African American music from a critical perspective. Outline key historical events and/or trends that link African and African American music in your discussion of this relationship. Identify at least three musical characteristics shared between African and African American music, and describe the cultural contexts they exist within. List at least three African instruments that influenced the development of African American music, and describe the aesthetic principles that govern their use.
3. Choose Your Own Topic (Self Directed)
You may also choose your own research paper topic. Be sure to include a discussion of musical and historical themes from the course readings and lectures as they relate to your topic. You may skew your discussion towards either social or musical analysis. However, there must be a clear connection between you topic and African American musical heritage as outlined in the course. I recommend avoiding choosing topics that are only loosely connected to African American music, and instead choosing a topic that is clearly related to the experience of African Americans in the U.S.
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Research Paper Directions:
Your research paper should include proper citation(s) (e.g., quotes from readings, lectures, discussion, etc.), endnotes (or footnotes) as appropriate, and a bibliography. Please use APA citation style and be consistent. Consult the citation style document available here for specific resource citation formatting:
http://guides.library.berklee.edu/c.php?g=363763#s-lg-page-section-2457692
The research paper should be ten typewritten pages with page numbering, double-spaced, 12 point font with a standard font face, 1 inch margins. All font should be black, and there should be no font size larger than 12 point anywhere in the document. Do not include a cover page or an abstract, and place any images you want to reference in an appendix. Do not include inline images in your paper. There should be no extra line breaks after paragraphs or section headers (if you choose to include them). Please submit your paper on OL as a PDF.
Research Resources:
JSTOR
http://guides.library.berklee.edu/az.php?a=j
Library Research Guides
http://guides.library.berklee.edu/?b=s
*Our professor will use zerochatgpt to check our essay so please be concerned about it, thank you.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/24569932
https://www.jstor.org/stable/20063998
Reading materials: