Transcript Preparing for the midterm Wednesday October 8th

Preparing for the midterm
th
Wednesday October 8
Test form, question examples,
expected readings
Review in preparation
Please review the readings, and your notes the discussions we have had to this time. This
includes the materials on
Virtual Vernacular Music: The place of music in cultural creations
Defining the vernacular
The past before electricity was a foreign country, they did things differently then.
Music of Procession and Dance
The Parlor and Home: Pianoforte, guitar, harp, and song
The mid-century influence of European Music: Inventing the Classical, demoting the Popular.
Stage and Public Performance in mid-century America: Minstrelsy: Inventing the Stage Negro
The Spiritual and Black Music of the Post-Civil War
Professional Musicians and the evolution of the Military and Concert Band
The Business of Sheet Music: Tin Pan Alley
Actuality and Novelty: Changing the nature of musical performance
The Virtue of Virtuosity: Variations on a familiar theme and other early recording agendas
The Boom and Bust of professional musicians: pit orchestras and theater organists
Ragtime: the first recorded musical enthusiasm
Why was it all about Sound?
Marketing regional traditions: The Invention of Hillbilly Records
Bring to the Test
What you’ll need to take the midterm:
Positive mental attitude, strengthened by:
Sleep that promotes mental agility
Preparation by reviewing the materials to be covered
Your water bottle, or be prepared to get up and go get water during the test.
A dark writing implement
What you don’t need to bring to the test:
Blue books, writing paper, notes, lap-top computer, I-Phone.
This test is open mind, but not open source.
Quizzical Form
The text has two parts: Part one and Part two.
Part One: This has twenty questions mostly short answers of a
word or phrase. You must only answer fifteen.
Part of your participation is choosing which questions you can
answer most confidently.
Part Two asks you to write a paragraph considering the
implications of the facts that you know. There will be no fewer than
five, probably no more than eight choices—answer one.
An example from class or the readings is always useful to
show your control of the material in the answer. Two examples
(unless for comparison or contrast) is one too many.
Questions: Short Questions
Our midterm will be a mixture of short answer questions (with choices available) and an
essay question (with choices available). Here are samples of the kinds of questions you
might be asked to answer:
1. Give one way that the technical medium of mechanical recording influenced the musical
materials that performers recorded.
2. Give an example of a ragtime composition. In a sentence why is that piece best described
as “ragtime”.
3. When music is written for the market-place it may have many characteristics but it must
be accessible. That is to say it must be
a. Able to be sung by amateurs.
b. Only purchased in stores.
c. Scored for every instrument.
d. Inexpensive.
Questions: Paragraph answers
Close your eyes and image a garden of narrative question relating
to our readings and class conversations.
For example:
The components of virtuosity that Anya Royce describes focus on
technique; mastery of extra-technical elements; level of execution
of technical elements; attitude of nonchalant, self-critical, limiting.
How does her evaluation of these aspects of performance contrast
with what is most often heard in mechanical recordings made for
listening? In this sharp contrast what is the heart of distinction
between the goals of concert performance and popular
performance? Why would a well-known, simple tune be a better
vehicle for the display of virtuosity than say a very technically
difficult composition?