What can music teach us about regional history and culture? Discover the answer in this two-course set. Start with The Banjo: Music, History, and Heritage, where you’ll reflect on American history and culture through the lens of one of our most important musical instruments: the banjo. Then, examine the full scope of a historical epoch that still profoundly influences life in the United States, in A New History of the American South.
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In The Banjo: Music, History, and Heritage, you will explore the history of banjo music from African spirituals to jazz club standards to activist folk numbers. Taught by acclaimed musician and MacArthur grant recipient Rhiannon Giddens, the 10 jam-packed episodes take you across time and cultures to uncover the hidden history of a sonically rich American instrument.
In Professor Anthony Seeger’s America’s Musical Heritage, learn how to listen to the music of America with new ears. Produced in collaboration with Smithsonian Folkways Recordings—proprietor of the vast treasury of American vernacular music—these 12 lectures explore more than 200 years of music from trailblazers like Scott Joplin, the Memphis Jug Band, Woody Guthrie, and many others.
Discover the sounds and songs that defined a nation’s history with this lively, music-rich course set. First, explore over 200 years of American music alongside Smithsonian Folkways Recordings in America’s Musical Heritage. Then, go behind the scenes of some of Broadways biggest hits and most memorable moments in Great American Music: Broadway Musicals.
Music is an integral part of humanity, from large societies to small tribes—but why? Music and the Brain probes this profound mystery, exploring the origins of music’s emotional powers; the connections between music and language; the links between hearing, moving, remembering, and imagining; and beyond. This interdisciplinary course combines music and cognitive science to reveal the glory of this marvelous gift.
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