ASSIGNMENT DESCRIPTIONS

Assignment 1: Genre As Musical

Annotated Playlist/Listening Guide

Create a curated playlist comparing your artist with an influence, with detailed annotations explaining specific musical elements (instrumentation, vocal style, chord progressions, etc.).

Submitted as a digital document with embedded audio clips and/or timestamps, or a Spotify/YouTube playlist with corresponding annotations and timestamps in a text document.

This is a formative, additive assessment. Upload tracks to your playlist as you discover them. Add to your analyses every week. Start simply, with observations in your own words, e.g., "I hear a similarity between my artist and their influence in the drums, especially. How can I describe that similarity?" and aim to gradually fill in the terminology and insight as your ideas mature. You will be assessed not only on the final annotations, but on the prior weeks' question asking and research behind the final annotations.

Prompt

How does the influence from [Another Artist or Genre] upon [Your Artist] reinforce, challenge, or relocate genre boundaries? Provide an analysis using genre-appropriate terminology that explains how that particular influence used/challenged Your Artist's current generic musical conventions.

Research Questions

Does this influence reinforce or challenge your artist's genre's expectations?

  • How? In what way?
  • What are the genre(s) of your artist and of the influence?

Does the influence generically relocate your artist? To what extent?

Can you describe this influence in genre-specific music terminology? Be as specific as possible.

  • Is it a question of:
    • what instruments are used?
    • vocal style?
    • samples?
    • groove/feel?
    • theme of the lyrics?
    • what chords are used?
    • how the melodies are formed?

Do other people (scholars, critics, fandom) have ideas about specifically musical aspects of this influence?

  • Do you agree with them? Why/why not?

Assignment 2: Genre as Social

Class Presentation and One-On-One Talk

Deliver a low-stakes 10-minute work-in-progress presentation, and conduct a 20-minute one-on-one conversation with me at a later date. Treat the relationship of your artist to the music industry as the subject of analysis. The idea is to situate your ideas from the Genre as Musical assignment in their Social context.

Prompt

In Assignment 1, you argued that [artist] reinforced/challenged/relocated genre boundaries. What social/economic/political factors made that possible? Who benefited from it? Who resisted it? Based on your analysis of how [artist] used/challenged [genre]'s musical conventions (Assignment 1), what social/economic/political structures made those musical choices risky, or necessary? How did the market/fandom/media respond?

Research Questions

What are the systems of power in/with which your artist had to negotiate?

  • How well did they interact with these structures? Did they take advantage of them?
  • (How) did they challenge these structures?

Who paid for the production and distribution of this music?

  • What were their political leanings and other investments?
  • Was the work commissioned?

Was your artist "discovered"?

  • Was your artist "lucky" at all?
  • How?
  • Who discovered them and why did they like them?

Who distributed it? Is/was it on a record label? Was it a relatively large or small record label?

  • Who runs the record label? What's their agenda, aesthetically, politically, culturally, economically?

How was the work distributed? Which media formats?

  • What material merchandise was made and sold?
  • Was it pirated a lot?
  • What are the streaming statistics?

How do people discover this music?

  • How do they learn about the genre, more broadly? Word of mouth? Music institutions?

To what extent does your artist's appearance factor into their brand/career?

To what extent does sex and controversy factor into their career?

To what extent does a particular theme(s) or politics factor into the artist's career?

Assignment 1: Annotated Playlist

You will be assessed on:

Your Own Playlist

50%

10% per week

Comments on other's playlist

25%

5% per week

Peer-Assessment of 1 Peer

25%

Pass/Fail

Rubric for my assessment of your playlist (50%) and for peer assessment (both your assessment of their playlist and their assessment of yours)

5 x 2 points per week = 10 points per week
1st week is automatic 10 points

Terminology (2 points per week)

Correct terminology is used or questions pertaining to terminology are honest and penetrating. Evidence of increasingly specific use of terminology.

Research (2 points per week)

Consults a range of sources from scholarship, fandom, and critics.

Listening (2 points per week)

Demonstrates thoughtful listening with both artists implicated in the "influence," through timestamps and description.

Focus (2 points per week)

Clear emphasis on Genre norms and on the influence between the two artists.

Growth (2 points per week)

Annotations either stick with questions, building upon and developing themes in prior weeks or they flag dead ends and explain why the focus pivots to new musical features.

Guideline for Comments on others' Playlist Annotations

(25% total - 5% per week)

Comments should include things like:

  • Supportive ideas
  • Follow-up questions
  • Suggestions on readings
  • And should respect Discussion Guidelines and Peer Reviewer's Credo
RUBRICS

Assignment 2: Presentation and Conversation

You will be assessed on:

Your Conversation with me

50%

Your Work-In-Progress Presentation

25%

Leading the Discussion on One Peer's Presentation

25%

Rubric for Presentation (25%) and Conversation (50%)

Terminology (5% in Presentation, 10% in Conversation)

In work-in-progress Presentation, questions pertaining to terminology are honest and penetrating. In Conversation, correct terminology is used. Evidence of increasingly specific use of terminology between Presentation and Conversation.

Research (5% in Presentation, 10% in Conversation)

Consults a range of sources from scholarship, fandom, and critics. Evidence is specific, relevant, and supports claims well. Demonstrates engagement with research questions.

Connection to Musical Analysis (5% in Presentation, 10% in Conversation)

Both Presentation and Conversation make explicit and specific connections between musical analysis in Assignment 1 and context: Shows how industry realities, market conditions, or cultural factors made certain musical decisions necessary, risky, or possible.

Social Context Analysis (5% in Presentation, 10% in Conversation)

Identification of the social context in which the artist worked, and several factors that co-produced their impact (means of production and distribution, market positioning, identity, etc.). Moves beyond description to analyze power dynamics—explores who benefited, who resisted, and why. Shows complexity in understanding industry structures and cultural contexts.

Presentation Quality and Organization (5% in Presentation, 10% in Conversation)

Clear organization and delivery in both Presentation and Conversation. Ideas are communicated effectively. Uses time well. In Presentation, shows work-in-progress thinking clearly. In Conversation, develops ideas with depth and engages thoughtfully with questions.

Guideline for Leading Discussion on Peer's Presentation (25%)

The goal for this assessment is that you take responsibility for the class culture and guide discussion in line with the Guidelines and Credo around one of your peer's work-in-progress Presentation.

  • Clear engagement and familiarity with the arguments in Presentation
  • Supportive ideas, perhaps pointing towards changes for Conversation
  • Follow-up questions
  • Respects Discussion Guidelines and Peer Reviewer's Credo
Connections with Learning Objectives