MUS 1129 - How to Be a Guitarist

Credits: 4
How do you learn to play the guitar? How do you get to be a guitar player? These are very different questions, and this class will consider both. The history of the guitar in the United States is the history of race and gender in American music. In the Victorian era, women learned to play the guitar as part of a genteel upbringing, but now female guitarists like Bonnie Raitt and Dolly Parton can only become successful as singers. The white rock guitarists of the 1960s learned everything they knew from the old black bluesmen, and then totally eclipsed them in fame and money. The more modern symbol of the “The Guitar Hero” is white and male; but the first rock and roll guitarist was a black female (Rosetta Tharpe- quickly forgotten). The guitar itself belongs in all American music from classical and jazz to country and commercial, but who gets to play the guitar and become famous for it depends as much on demographics as musical style. In this class students will learn to play the guitar by analyzing, interpreting and creating songs. Along the way, they will learn about American culture in all its social tensions through studying the history of guitar playing in America.
McDaniel Plan: Creative Expression