Many experts on timbre are drawn to the great timbral diversity that can be found in popular musics and in non-Western musics, where aesthetics often diverge from concert hall music. For the next several weeks, we will study intersections between identity, genre, and timbre in these musics.
Table of Contents
Feb 27: Twang in country music
Discussion leader: Colton
Twang is the factor that makes many people love or hate country music. Shockingly, there exists very little academic study on the sound of twang, apart from Jocelyn Neal’s essay. Neal is music theory’s preeminent scholar of country music.
Write a response essay (NB: NOT a summary!) to this essay, at least 500 words long.
A response essay is your personal take on the readings, and thus you shouldn’t be trying to write the “right answer,” but rather your opinion and reaction to what you’ve read.
More on response essays
A response essay is your personal take on the readings, and thus you shouldn’t be trying to write the “right answer,” but rather your opinion and reaction to what you’ve read. Remember that these are graded pass/fail, so anything you write is valuable in that sense. Feel free to use I/me pronouns and to freely express yourself (while remaining professional) and your opinion of the reading.
Due Wednesday at noon
Read your partner’s response essay, and write a meaningful response to their thoughts, roughly 100 words in length.
Submit all work by posting a thread on Blackboard! For your partner responses, leave a comment on their thread.
Mar 6: Reverb and Synthesizers
Discussion leaders: Christian (Théberge) and Sarah (de Souza)
Studies of timbre in pop music often overlap with study of recording technology. Jonathan de Souza discusses the implied aesthetics of the use of synthesizers, while Paul Théberge focuses on a seemingly omnipresent factor in mixing and mastering: reverb.
Due Monday at noon
In class, you were assigned to a partner. Within each pair, one partner should read and the other should read . Audio and other supplementary examples for can be found on the companion website for the book.
Write a one page outline that summarizes your reading. Be sure to include the main thesis of the paper and definitions of any key terms. Add page numbers for any quotations you pull.
Due Wednesday at noon
Work with your partner to create a short statement on how your readings interact with one another, roughly 100 words in length.
Submit all work by posting a thread on Blackboard! You may email me your partner statements directly.
Mar 13: Spring Break
Mar 20: Vocal Timbre and Identity
Discussion leaders: Jacob (Eidsheim) and Mike (Provenzano)
Timbre is always deeply intertwined with identity, but this issue is amplified when discussing vocal timbre. These two essays offer two perspectives on how listener perception shapes our discourse around vocal timbre.
Due Monday at noon
In class, you were assigned to a partner. Within each pair, one partner should read and the other should read .
Write a one page outline that summarizes your reading. Be sure to include the main thesis of the paper and definitions of any key terms. Add page numbers for any quotations you pull.
Due Wednesday at noon
Work with your partner to create a short statement on how your readings interact with one another, roughly 100 words in length.
Submit all work by posting a thread on Blackboard! You may email me your partner statements directly.
Mar 27: Gamelan
Discussion leader: Michael
You have probably heard of gamelan and its microtonal tuning system before. Michael Tenzer, a prominent music theorist and world musics scholar, delves into the timbral aspects of the sound of Balinese gamelan music.
Due Monday at noon
Read .
Write a response essay (NB: NOT a summary!) to this essay, at least 500 words long.
Due Wednesday at noon
Read your partner’s response essay, and write a meaningful response to their thoughts, roughly 100 words in length.
Submit all work by posting a thread on Blackboard! For your partner responses, leave a comment on their thread.
Bibliography
If articles are not available online, you should find them in the Readings folder.
Tenzer, Michael. 2018. “Timbre and Polyphony in Balinese Gamelan.” In The Oxford Handbook of Timbre, edited by Emily I Dolan and Alexander Rehding. New York: Oxford University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190637224.001.0001.
Neal, Jocelyn R. 2018. “The Twang Factor in Country Music.” In The Relentless Pursuit of Tone: Timbre in Popular Music, edited by Robert Wallace Fink, Melinda Latour, and Zachary Wallmark, 43–64. New York: Oxford University Press.
Théberge, Paul. 2018. “The Sound of Nowhere: Reverb and the Construction of Sonic Space.” In The Relentless Pursuit of Tone: Timbre in Popular Music, edited by Robert Wallace Fink, Melinda Latour, and Zachary Wallmark, 323–44. New York: Oxford University Press.
Sun Eidsheim, Nina. 2018. “‘The Triumph of Jimmy Scott’: A Voice Beyond Category.” In The Relentless Pursuit of Tone: Timbre in Popular Music, edited by Robert Wallace Fink, Melinda Latour, and Zachary Wallmark, 159–81. New York: Oxford University Press.
Provenzano, Catherine. 2018. “Auto-Tune, Labor, and the Pop Music Voice.” In The Relentless Pursuit of Tone: Timbre in Popular Music, edited by Robert Wallace Fink, Melinda Latour, and Zachary Wallmark, 141–58. New York: Oxford University Press.
