1. African American
• Slavery and African music traditions
• Christian conversion of slaves, evolution of musical expressions
• The Negro Spiritual and development of Gospel music
• Blues, Ragtime and Jazz
• Secular-sacred musical interactions in the 20th century – the Civil Rights (1950s) and the Black Power movements (1960s)
2. Pop music
• The Rock’n’roll movement of the 1950s
• Rock, Soul, Motown and Country in the 1960s
• Disco, Heavy Metal, Reggae and Punk Rock in the 1970s
• Hip Hop and Rap in the 1980s
• The Implications of Technology
• Social significance
• The Internet Era: America and the Global Village
3. Music, Theatre and Cinema
• The Musical
• Music in the movies
4. Art music
• The legacy of the Plymouth colony
• The 19th century: the foundation of urban musical societies; the first American Art music composers.
• The 20th century: Charles Ives to Aaron Copland, John Cage to Philip Glass and Steve Reich. Leonard Bernstein.