In this lesson, students will examine photographs, live recordings, video interviews, and …
In this lesson, students will examine photographs, live recordings, video interviews, and a government report in order to learn about the historical and cultural context of the Soul music recorded in the 1970s.
Disco's roots were multiple. It had connections to R&B and Funk, but …
Disco's roots were multiple. It had connections to R&B and Funk, but it was also born out of the urban gay culture in New York City. But no matter its roots, it quickly moved into the mainstream with a string of best-selling hits by artists from Donna Summer to the Village People. The phenomenally successful 1977 film Saturday Night Fever took Disco's commercial popularity to surprising heights. The film's soundtrack produced numerous Top 10 hits and the album sold over 15 million copies.
In this lesson, students will examine raw documentary footage, demographic charts, television …
In this lesson, students will examine raw documentary footage, demographic charts, television news stories, and song lyrics to connect the sounds of early Hip Hop to the substandard living conditions in American inner cities in the late 1970s, particularly the Bronx in New York City. Students will compose their own verses to Grandmaster Flash's "The Message," to be followed up with a research-driven writing assignment to further explore the urban environment depicted in the landmark song.
Gangsta Rap grew in part out of the social and political climate …
Gangsta Rap grew in part out of the social and political climate on the West Coast, where cities such as Compton, California, became engulfed in gang violence fueled by the crack cocaine epidemic. Longstanding tensions between the African-American community and the police came to a head in the Rodney King case and the announcement of its verdict. Gangsta rappers began to write explicitly about inner city violence. Songs were marked by a liberal use of profanity and images of the gun-toting toughs who lived amidst the brutality of the inner city. Gangsta Rap often overlapped with the East Coast-based "Mafioso Rap," whose practicioners cultivated personas of high-living, power-wielding gangsters who drove fancy cars, drank champagne, and sported intimidating weapons all while promoting a strong sense of kinship. Fiction seemed to become fact when rappers Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G. were victims of unsolved, highly public murders. Soon enough, a countermovement some called "Conscious Hip Hop€" began to emerge, primarily on the East Coast. Many fans saw it as an answer to the often violent and controversial lyrics common in Gangsta Rap. Though in many ways responding to the same conditions to which Gangsta Rap reacted, this subgenre sought to inspire positivity through its lyrics, much like some of the earliest Hip Hop music. Lyrics were intended to challenge and inspire while also questioning the social and political status quo.
In this lesson, students use the lyrics to "Something Like This" as …
In this lesson, students use the lyrics to "Something Like This" as an opportunity to learn the stories of Achilles, Hercules, Wonder Woman and Superman. Students will explore similarities between these gods and superheroes, finally considering why mortals still need superhumans, thousands of years later.
In this lesson, students will explore these questions, comparing Lana Del Rey's …
In this lesson, students will explore these questions, comparing Lana Del Rey's "Young and Beautiful" with chapters 1-7 of The Great Gatsby to form their own characterization of Daisy. Students will view the music video for "Young and Beautiful" and analyze advertisements and headlines from 1918-1922 to consider the potential influence of cultural values and gender expectations on women like Daisy. Finally, using excerpts from the novel, the song, and the advertisements, students will work in groups to create an identity chart for Daisy.
In this lesson, students will discuss how the ideals of the Harlem …
In this lesson, students will discuss how the ideals of the Harlem Renaissance and Locke's New Negro were exemplified by the poetry of Langston Hughes. Specifically, they will examine how Hughes incorporated the vernacular tradition of the Blues in his work, and identify the literary techniques Hughes employs to make his poetry so vivid.
This lesson investigates how electrifying the guitar was a contributing factor to …
This lesson investigates how electrifying the guitar was a contributing factor to the emergence of a sound that came to define Rock and Roll and, to a large extent, mid-20th century American popular culture. Featuring content from the PBS Soundbreaking episode, "Going Electric," which includes the guitar playing of luminaries Charlie Christian, Pete Townsend, Muddy Waters and Jimi Hendrix, this lesson examines the spirit of curiosity, adaptation and invention that characterized the early 1950s and in the 1960s led to the guitar's emergence as a versatile and attractive instrument for musicians and as the quintessential Rock and Roll icon.
In this lesson, students listen to Flint-based rapper Jon Connor's song "Fresh …
In this lesson, students listen to Flint-based rapper Jon Connor's song "Fresh Water for Flint" to better understand the sense of frustration and injustice people living in the city felt during the water crisis. Students then experiment with creating their own water filtration system to better understand the scientific and engineering principles behind water treatment. Lastly, they consider the biological effects of lead poisoning and determine specific, political, economic, and scientific causes behind the Flint water crisis.
In this lesson, created in partnership with the Association for Cultural Equity, …
In this lesson, created in partnership with the Association for Cultural Equity, students discover how the banjo and music making more generally among slaves contributed to debates on the ethics of slavery. They listen to slave narratives, examine statistics, and read primary sources to better understand how slavery was conceptualized and lived through in the 18th and 19th centuries. Throughout the lesson, students return to videos created by Alan Lomax of pre-blues banjo player Dink Roberts as a way to imagine what music among slaves in the United States may have sounded like.
This lesson explores several strands of the musical "DNA" that make up …
This lesson explores several strands of the musical "DNA" that make up the beat of popular music. Looking to the past, this lesson asks what it means to call music "Afro-Cuban" "Afro-Caribbean," or more broadly, "African-American." Students will use Soundbreakingclips of Santana and Beyonce and the Soundbreaking Rhythmic Layers TechTools to locate in American popular music influences stemming from the African-American church, Latin America and West Africa. Students will then explore the ways "the beat" of this music has, to some listeners, been perceived as "dangerous" while, for others, it is believed that music has been able to challenge obstacles of racism and segregation, bringing people from varied ethnic groups and lifestyles together in ways that words and laws could not.
In this lesson students explore the creative concepts and technological practices on …
In this lesson students explore the creative concepts and technological practices on which Hip Hop music was constructed, investigating what it means to "sample" from another style, who has used sampling and how. Then, students experience the technology first hand using the Soundbreaking Sampler TechTool. Students will follow patterns of Caribbean immigration and the musical practices that came to New York City as a result of those patterns, finally considering the ways in which Hip Hop reflects them. Moving forward to the late 1980s and early 90s, what some consider Hip Hop's "Golden Age," this lesson explores how sampling might demonstrate a powerful creative expression of influence or even a social or political statement. Finally, this lesson encourages students to consider the conceptual hurdle Hip Hop asked listeners to make by presenting new music made from old sounds.
In this lesson, students use examples from visual art as well as …
In this lesson, students use examples from visual art as well as rap to enter into a "structured academic controversy" that explores the concept of originality.
In this lesson, students follow the life journey of Blues musician McKinley …
In this lesson, students follow the life journey of Blues musician McKinley "Muddy Waters" Morganfield, from his early beginnings in rural Mississippi to his music career in Chicago, Illinois. In learning about Waters' life, students consider the ways new environments might inspire people to express themselves in different ways. Students then reflect on ways new experiences might have spurred their own personal growth by creating a life roadmap.
In this lesson, Gospel music is used as a way to introduce …
In this lesson, Gospel music is used as a way to introduce students to the rhythmic concepts of beat, meter, backbeat, subdivision, and syncopation. By clapping and counting along to videos of Mahalia Jackson, Sam Cooke, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, The Staple Singers, and Beyonce, students practice hearing and identifying these various aspects of rhythm. Students will also use an interactive TechTool to gain a deeper understanding of the syncopated rhythms that allows Gospel, as well a popular music in general, inspire us to move.
Taking Sam Phillips as a case study, this lesson explores the role …
Taking Sam Phillips as a case study, this lesson explores the role of the producer in the recording studio as one defined by an ability to guide the recording process but also to affect the wider cultural context. After investigating what a producer does and why an artist might benefit from a producer's services, this lesson looks at the way Sam Phillips' approach in some ways reflects the trend of urbanization in the American South. Like Phillips, many of his artists came from rural backgrounds and were seeking the benefits of urban life. That move toward the urban, and the racial mixing it fostered, was almost encoded in the music, as the lesson activities will illuminate. Finally, the lesson looks at Phillip's guidance of a young Elvis Presley and suggests how the music they produced created an opening for African-American music to "crossover" into mainstream American popular music.
In this lesson, students will investigate the work and legacies of Black …
In this lesson, students will investigate the work and legacies of Black and Latinx pioneers often ignored in larger discussions about LGBTQ+ history, by collaborating with other students in analyzing primary source documents. Students will also explore the ways city governments and activists are working to combat the erasure of Black and Latinx trans women and the broader whitewashing of the Gay Liberation Movement.
Students will compare Kendrick Lamar's "Alright" with black protest songs of the …
Students will compare Kendrick Lamar's "Alright" with black protest songs of the past in order to identify common themes and ideas tat artists have used to illustrate black experience in the United States.
In this lesson. students will read statements from Black Lives Matter and …
In this lesson. students will read statements from Black Lives Matter and watch a clip fron CNN's Soundtracks to explore the sifnificance of the movement and the music made in response to the issues they rally behind. Students will also analyze clips from the music videos of artists Kendrick Lamar and Beyonce Knowles-Carter to understand music's relation to the Black Lives Matter movement.
Students will analyze demographic data, and watch footage from CNN's Soundtrakcs series …
Students will analyze demographic data, and watch footage from CNN's Soundtrakcs series and a congressional hearing after the disaster to better understand the magnitude of Hurricane Katrina, and the way the federal government's response brought to light issues of racial neglect. Students will also invesitgate how Kanye West's comments during a national fundraiser articulated the disappointment and anger many black American's felt following Hurricane Katrina.
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