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Teaching History Through Music: A Musicological Analysis of The “Sixties” by Phil Lamay
Music, Culture, and Education My presentation this morning, “Teaching History Through Music: A Musicological Analysis of The “Sixties”, is designed to offer suggestions on ways that music can be used to teach history—using as a case study, the “1960s’”. But I also want to briefly address a larger issue concerning the role and value of music in our culture. And I want to begin by arguing for a greater appreciation and inclusion of music and art in our educational institutions, especially the public schools. Since the 1950s, popular music, especially rock and its subgenres, has been a mainstay in the leisure diets and social lives of American (indeed, global) youth. Today our youth live in a sea of music. Whether MTV, MP3s and I Pods, internet downloads, CD burning, or satellite radio, music underscores their favorite television shows, movies, internet surfing, video games, and social lives. Even more than their parents and grandparents, they have the money and technology to build enormous CD, DVD, and MP3 collections. And they continue to go to rock concerts. In addition, one in five public school students play a musical instrument, more than ever before. However, in many of our public schools music and art play a secondary role to language and literature, math and science, and social studies. Some scholars have argued that in deemphasizing music and art as basic studies, we have effectively devalued the arts, narrowed the scope and depth of education, and inhibited the creative potential of American youth. Anthropologists have long demonstrated that human beings are cultural beings. Far more than any other animal, we create the worlds, both material and abstract, that we inhabit. From material culture like tools, televisions, or musical instruments, to abstract culture such as language, law, or mathematics, humans are creative and inventive animals. Therefore, culture is essentially art, and humans are essentially artists. At its most basic level the human impulse is to create. For young children, Kindergarten, and maybe the first few grades, we use music, art, play, games, theater, and imagination, to teach many subject and skill areas, including language, counting, and memory skills, as well as to develop motor skills and for physical exercise. Shortly after, as our children advance through the educational system, the use of music and art to teach subjects other than musical performance or theory (for a minority of students), begins to drift away, settling in as occasional studies, extracurricular pastimes, or as one local school system calls the arts, “specials”. I don’t want to fall into a trap by condemning the entire educational system as deaf and blind to music and the arts. Because I know there are many schools and school systems with strong programs in music and the arts, and that there are many creative and committed teachers in small, under-funded programs. And I expect that many of you include music and arts in your teaching of history, and I hope to snag a few those ideas. Still, for every student I have in class who says his high school was strong in the arts (often this is a wealthy community or a private school), there are five others who admit their music, art, or theater programs were weak, sometimes non-existent. By relegating music and the arts to secondary status in the curriculum, it has become devalued—that is, valued less than other subject areas, which I firmly believe is wrong. Especially now, where research increasingly is showing that knowledge and understanding of music strengthens and stimulates many intellectual and creative abilities, in addition to supporting physical and emotional health. For example, music is believed to stimulate cognitive brain functions, including critical thinking, problem solving, and memory. Incidentally, research into the use of music to recover and stimulate memory in Alzheimer’s and other brain-impaired patients is a growing field. Most of you are probably familiar with the theory of the “Mozart Effect”, which argues that listening to certain types of music (like Mozart) stimulates areas of the brain responsible for critical and creative analysis. Researchers believe that certain music has a “warming up” effect on the brain. You may also be familiar with the theory of Multiple Intelligences, which argues that there are multiple areas of intelligence which all people posses, one of which is musical ability. And while relative strength in each may vary from person to person, all humans possess these basic intelligences, but they need to be nurtured and developed, to be more fully realized. Studies of student achievement continue to show that student musicians score consistently higher of IQ tests than students untrained in music (Buchanan, 2002, Campbell, 2001, Harvey, 1997). I could go on with the research studies in music and education, but I will resist. Except to add that one of my intellectual heroes, Albert Einstein, arguably the single greatest mind of the 20th century, and a fine violinist, firmly believed in the power of music to stimulate intellect. He often credited his own musical studies as critical to his mathematical breakthroughs. In my music and anthropology classes, I have students read a book called How Musical is Man? by anthropologist John Blacking. Blacking writes of his stay with a South African tribal culture called the Venda. The most unique feature of the Venda is that all members are musical—that is, they play musical instruments, sing, dance, compose music and write lyrics and poetry. Music marks virtually all features of Venda culture; the seasons, holy days, the start of each month, the hours of the day and rites of passage are all marked by music, song, and dance. There are songs associated with different jobs, songs associated with places or people, songs about animals, foods, emotions, greetings, and departures. Blacking writes that living with the Venda is like living within an opera or a Broadway musical. And while there are highly skilled and professional musicians in their society, beginning in childhood all Venda are expected to develop a deep knowledge of music and a fairly sophisticated set of musical skills. It’s also a culture where women are considered the best drummers. In a conversation with some Venda men, Blacking tells them that he comes from a culture (western culture) where most people don’t play musical instruments, and where only a few are considered talented enough to become accomplished or professional musicians. The Venda are astonished, and one man asks, a bit sarcastically, “Are not your people human beings?” “Of course, they’re human beings,” replies Blacking. “Well then,” the Venda man says, “To be human, is to be musical.” Hence, the title of the book, How Musical is Man? After examining the origin, development and role of music across human cultures and history, Blacking concludes that music is a universal means of human expression, and allows for physical, emotional, intellectual, and creative expression and communication. And he comes to agree with the Venda that to be human is to be musical. But if in some cultures this seems not to be true, perhaps that’s because those cultures have failed to see and nurture the musical (and artistic) potential inherent in all of their people. Part of my mission as an educator and musician is to help nurture and reinvigorate the musical potential in our youth and in our education system. Music (and more generally art) can be both subjects of study in themselves (as in learning to play a musical instrument), and they can be used to teach other subjects and skills as well, from math and science, to the social sciences and humanities. I believe that music and the arts provide the foundation for human learning and creativity, just as they do in early childhood education, but there’s no reason to stop there.
Music in the Social Sciences The history of music or art is not only a study of individual artists and artistic achievements. It’s also a study of society, its culture, and the ways that social and cultural changes influenced the arts and artists of the period. At the same time, the arts and artists often influenced the society, its culture, and its history. To me, Louis Armstrong is as important as Martin Luther King in the history of American race relation and the movement for racial equality. Of course, he’s also a central figure in the birth and evolution of jazz, which is to say American popular music. Examining trends in art, music, fashion, entertainment, or architecture, can tell us a great deal about a society’s politics, economy, religious beliefs, and gender and race relations. The relationship between art and culture is a symbiotic one. Music and art do not develop in a vacuum, they develop within the society and culture and historical circumstance of which they are a part. We cannot understand one without understanding the other (Garofalo, 2005, Blacking, 2000, Merriam, 1976). Given that the focus of this week’s program is Twentieth Century America and the World, it’s important to examine the role that early twentieth century technological innovation played in the evolution of a new, dynamic and powerful mass media and popular culture industry that has had important implications for American social and cultural history, especially for American youth. My overview begins at the start of the 20th century, when the late 19th century inventions and technological innovations of Thomas Edison and others begin to be more commercially affordable and profitable. The technologies of the phonograph, records, radio, television, satellites, and computers did much to create a new mass culture of electric and electronic commodities and a national (now global) popular culture. By the middle of the 20th century America was fully wired by television, film, radio, and stereo systems. Evolving at the same time, and in connection with the new technologies, was America’s evolving musical culture. Certain styles of music most congenial to the technologies of recording and radio included tin pan alley-the first music for the masses, mass-produced through sheet music, piano sales, and later radio and records. And in the 20s and 30s Negro spirituals, the blues, gospel, jazz, rhythm and blues (so called race music) began to appear on radio and record. And then in the 50s rock n’ roll hit like a hurricane, exploding in the 60s and early seventies, and spawning numerous sub-genres like disco, punk, grunge, heavy metal, hip hop, and rap. From the 1920s till today, the African American experience has most deeply defined American popular music culture. These new forms of mass mediated popular music came to define both the evolving nature of race relations, immigration patterns, cultural change, production and consumption habits, and at times even political debate and conflict.
Drum Set History and Demonstration The drum set, for example, is a 20th century American musical instrument, a product of the jazz age, and it says as much about American social and cultural history as it does about the history of jazz and rock music. You see drums and other percussion instruments are among the earliest and most universal of musical instruments. Based on years of cross-cultural analysis, anthropologists have linked percussion, drums, and rhythm with early communication and cultural expression, particularly relating to religion and the supernatural. Mythologist Joseph Campbell once wrote that, “You’ll never find a shaman without a drum”. In numerous ancient cultures, religious, medical, and musical specialties often reside in one person. In all cultures the drum (and music in general) is sacred. Two types of percussion instruments Idiophones: Percussion instruments whose sound is made from the striking of the instrument itself with something else-a hand, hammer, stick. The sound comes from the instrument itself, and the sonorous material from which it is made (whether wood, bone, metal, plastic). Membranophones: Percussion instruments whose sound is made from the striking of a membrane (or skin), which has been stretched over a frame, which is usually, but not always round, (wood, metal, plastic). Among the most ancient and traditional cultures, idiophones and membranophones tend to appear as separate, individual instruments, each usually played by one person. Even in the earliest or most simply structured societies, like hunter-gatherers, there might be dozens of percussion instruments, as well as string and wind instruments. But an ensemble of percussion instruments, representing a variety of idiophones and membranophones, from a variety of cultures, but played by a single musician, reflects a unique American history and composition for this musical instrument.
The Drum Set Snare drum and bass drum: are European concert and military (marching band) instruments. Tom Toms: comes from a popular, though grossly inaccurate term, to describe what were actually many drums or membranophones, of native American, Latin American (congas), African (djembe) and other cultures. Cymbals: brass and bronze cymbals originated from Asia, particularly China and Turkey. Cowbells, wood blocks, scrapers, shakers, and other idiophones: come from many cultures, most importantly, Latin America (especially Cuba). “Traps”: Stands, hi hat design, pedals, etc. (snare drum trap). Many of these drummers were inventers by necessity. One of its first formal names for the drum set was “the Traps”, a corruption of “contraption”, as in “What kind of contraption is that? Famed big band drummer Buddy Rich, was known as “Traps Rich” as a child drum set prodigy. It’s a percussive contraption that reflects both the multicultural history of the U.S, and the creative and improvisational nature of early jazz age musicians, especially African Americans, who cobbled together whatever percussion instruments they could find into a “contraption”, that could be dragged from one itinerant musical gig to the next. In the decades following emancipation and the mass migrations of southern blacks to the industrializing north, new musical instruments, new musical styles, and a new American culture and people emerged. Among the migrants coming north were Louis Armstrong, jazz music, and the drum set, heading up the Mississippi from New Orleans, to Chicago, to New York, and providing the evolving cultural soundtrack for 20th century America. Rock beat: emerges in mid-1950s, as Afro-Cuban rhythms and instruments (cow bell, clave, Bo Diddley riff) become adopted by American blues, jazz, and country musicians, and as the acoustic guitars and upright bass fiddles in blues, country, and folk music go electric. The rounded, swinging, smoother rhythms of jazz gave rise to a straighter, sharper, harder, louder rhythm. One might analogize that in the 50s the black movement for racial equality also took on a harder, sharper, louder rhythm. Case Study: The Sixties It’s safe to say that, in no other period of American history did music play such an important role. The music of the sixties is indeed “classic.” And just as we still listen to classical musical masters like Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven, I believe later generations will study and listen to Lennon and McCartney, Bob Dylan, James Brown, and Frank Zappa. I’ve been teaching the course, “Social Movements of the 1960s” for 14 years here at Castleton. It’s been my impression that most students are attracted to the course and to the historical period because of the roles that youth and music played in that history. Many students are quite knowledgeable about the music and musicians of sixties and early seventies. They correctly sense something special about the music and its role in youth culture and the history of the times. I begin by telling them of my own “politicization” through music. Do you remember the 80s show, The Wonder Years, which begins 1967 and 12 year old Kevin. That’s me; I was 12 years old in 1967. And what I remember more than anything else is the war in Vietnam, pot smoking high school kids (I had several older siblings), and rock music. I was also fortunate to be born into a large family of performing musicians. I was on the stage at five years of age singing and dancing with my eight brothers and sisters, playing drums at eight, appearing on TV, radio, and in numerous entertainment venues throughout New England and New York from 1963-1975. The 60s was an era of larger families and family musical acts. Remember the King Family, the Jackson 5, the Cowsills, the Osmand Family, and the sitcom TV’s Partidge Family. Well the Lamy Family Singers never made it quite that far, but we were part of 60s musical renaissance that included the family band. Still, at twelve, I wasn’t politically astute. I delivered the morning paper, but I didn’t read it, except for the Red Sox box scores. I didn’t watch Walter Cronkite and the CBS news. Instead, I listened over and over again to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, to Bob Dylan and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, to James Brown and the Temptations, and later to Blood, Sweat and Tears, Chicago, and Steely Dan. It was in this music, much of which increasing incorporated political and social issues and themes, that I came to understand the political and social issues and conflicts of the times. The popular music of the 60s and 70s politicized me. In the sixties popular music, especially rock music, became a means of expression and communication among many youth, as well as a vehicle for social criticism, resistance, disobedience and even revolt. Musicians such as Bob Dylan and John Lennon and the Beatles become powerful spokesmen and leaders of the emerging youth counterculture. When the Freedom of Information Act was passed, it turned out Lennon had one of the biggest FBI files, along with other “entertainers”, such as comedians Bill Cosby and George Carlin, actors Jane and Peter Fonda, and musicians Bob Dylan, Neil Young, and Country Joe McDonald. According to the F.B.I., these were among the greatest threats to America. This can perhaps be blamed on the increasing influence of the mass media (TV, radio, records, and rock concerts), and the great mass of young, middle-class baby boomers, with money in their pockets to purchase rock records and attend rock concerts. In the early 60s, there was no global music industry yet, and even in the U.S., the center of mass popular culture, the recording industry was “a backroom affair” as one writer put it. But the musical renaissance of the sixties as well as new developments in recording technology created a multi-billion dollar industry in less than one generation. It would be impossible to provide even a brief overview of the 1960s at this point; you might consider taking my “Social Movements of the 60s” class. What I would like to do now is to examine several of the major social movements of the 60s, and the larger notion of the youth counterculture, through brief analyses of the music and musicians who expressed the themes, values, and goals of the movements they themselves were a part. Let me apologize up front if I don’t use your favorite song, or one that you might think is a good example. When you wade through the popular music of the 60s, you realize just what a renaissance it was. There’s so much music, it’s mind-boggling. So please forgive me for the smattering of tunes I will be playing. Another important feature of 60s music is the great diversity of styles that coexisted at the time under the banner of rock n roll; rock, hard rock, soft rock or pop, blues, rhythm and blues, soul, blue eyed soul, funk, folk, folk rock, country rock, psychedelic or acid rock, Latin rock, jazz rock, fusion. And there was the Detroit sound (Motown), the Memphis sound, East and West coast sounds. And in the early years of FM Radio and on college radio stations across the country all of these styles were played back to back. There was no formatting of specific styles for specific audiences. As Billy Joel sang, “It’s all rock n roll to me”. But this inclusion of all styles had another important result; a wider audience of the nation’s youth was being exposed to a variety of styles (and ethnicities), but also a commonality of ideas, issues, and values concerning race and equality, drugs and sexuality, war and politics, and youth culture. The music of the sixties became a means of communication and education within the youth culture. It was literally the soundtrack for our generation. Popular music trends in the counterculture A. Black Music, Civil Rights, and the Black power “We Shall Overcome”: Turn of the 20th century gospel song that became and theme to civil rights movement and a universal anthem for oppressed people and folk singers everywhere, Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan. “All Blues”: Miles Davis (1959): Kind of Blue is best selling jazz album of all time, despite the 9-11 minutes instrumentals; cool jazz, basic blues forms; ominous, foreboding but cool and confident, progressive, much like Miles himself. But in the new jazz of the 50s and 60s are both clues to the direction of jazz, black music, and black political aspirations. Later in the 60s Miles spearheads the jazz/rock “fusion” movement with the record Bitches Brew. “I’m Black and I’m Proud”: James Brown, godfather of soul and funk. Soul and funk expressed black identity, pride, self-determination, and black power. In contrast to the non-violent actions of the civil rights movement, the black power movement, as reflected by leaders such Malcolm X, and organizations like the Black Panthers, were more aggressive, and ready to defend themselves. “Freedom”: Richie Havens B. Social and Change, Social Problems “The Times They are A’changin’”: Bob Dylan, 1964, following the assassination of John Kennedy. The 1960s was period of tremendous change, in race relations, ethnic and age, new technologies, economic progress, and global politics and war. The acknowledgement of that change in central to the song. “Blowin’ in the Wind”: Joan Baez , Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan had hit recordings of this 1962 Dylan tune that quickly became an anthem of grief at the horror of the past and a hope for better, more just future. “Eve of Destruction”: Song was a hit for Barry MaGuire, performed on the Ed Sullivan Show. “Ball of Confusion”: The Temptations C. Vietnam and the Anti-War movement ” Masters of War”: Bob Dylan “Give Peace a Chance”: John Lennon “Fighting to Die Rag”: Country Joe and the Fish, performed at Woodstock “For What it’s Worth”: Buffalo Springfield (Steven Stills) “Ohio”: Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, 1970 (Neil Young) “The Ballad of the Green Beret”: Written and performed by Barry Sadler, Green Beret, mercenary, novelist, singer song writer. ”What’s Going On?” Marvin Gaye, Motown’s first anti-war song, other social issues and conflicts. “Vietnam”: Jimmy Cliff, Sixties” didn’t just happen in U.S., it was part of more global period of large scale social change, in Europe, Southeast Asia (obviously) and Latin American and the Caribbean-Jamaica, for example. “Unknown Soldier”: Donovan “Fortune Son”: Credence Clearwater Revival
D. Radical Politics “Revolution”: Beatles, cautionary song about getting what you wish for “Power to the People”, John Lennon (Black Panther slogan) E. Alternative Religions, “Within and Without You”: George Harrison (Indian culture, sitar); Eastern religious themes. “Sympathy for the Devil”: Rolling Stones, 1969, Altamont, Hell’s Angels. “Does Anybody Really Know what time it is? Chicago, 1969, jazz rock, Zen Buddhist questioning the rat race, F. Hippie Culture “Groovin”, The Young Rascals “California Dreamin”: Mamas and the Papas "Stoned Soul Picnic”: Laura Nyro G. Drugs, Psychedelia, Altered States “Purple Haze”: Jimmy Hendrix “Along Comes Mary”: The Association “Cocaine”: Grateful Dead “White Rabbit”: Jefferson Airplane H. Women, Ethnic Minorities, the Poor, the Environment “RESPECT”: Aretha Franklin, the queen of soul, like so many great black singers she learned to so sing in the church choir, father was minister, she sang in the church choir. Became soul singer. “Respect” is a song for women’s rights (black women’s early leadership in the women’s movement). “Poverty Train”, Laura Nyro “Big Yellow Taxi”, Joni Mitchell Love, Peace and Justice “All You Need is Love”, The Beatles “People Got to be Free”: Young Rascals Methods for using music to teach history 1. Play music in class: Or have class in the music room. Use multiple media, including CD (tapes and especially old records) and employ music appreciation and content analysis techniques to understand sound, composition, poetry, and lyrical interpretation. (Other timely media and popular culture, TV shows, Films like Apocalypse Now, with 60s tracks) 2. Living musical history: bring in artists, musicians, dancers, actors who are knowledgeable about history of their art, its social and cultural significance, and skilled in performance. 3. Have student or teacher musicians perform and talk about their instrument, music and its role and place in history. A school’s band and director might also be incorporated into the interdisciplinary approach. 4. Employ material culture such as musical instruments, photographs, slides, record albums/jackets, music magazines, and content analysis of lyrics to examine political commentary, advertising/marketing, and technology. 5. Build cross-curricula or interdisciplinary teaching units incorporating the music and art teachers with teachers in history, social studies, humanities, and, of course, music and art. 6. Utilize local arts organizations like Crossroads, Chaffee Arts Center, Killington Music Festival, the Paramount, the Carving Studio, the Rutland Creative Economy, the Governor’s Institute for the Arts, Castleton, Green Mountain, and Saint Joseph’s college.
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Presented by Teaching American History Grant
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