PODCAST

Sound Philosophy

Chadwick Jenkins

A podcast exploring philosophical and interpretive approaches to the history of popular music.

music music history

All Episodes

00:41:06

015-The Emergence of the Blues in the Mainstream

Sound Philosophy ·

2020/10/08

This episode covers elements of blues harmony, melody, and form to demonstrate that our typical picture of the blues is far too simplistic and the blues itself is far more interesting than we assume. I then go on to discuss the early appearance of blues in sheet music and in recordings (including the beginning of the Blues Craze in 1920 with Mamie Smith's version of the Perry Bradford composition, "Crazy Blues").

00:41:48

014 Nietzsche’s Rausch, Aesthetic Form, and Highlife...

Sound Philosophy ·

2020/09/21

This episode uses Highlife music of Ghana to investigate a Nietzschean take on aesthetic attunement (what he terms Rausch), aesthetic form, and the production of the self. I begin by outlining how Ghanians employed ahaha, konkoma, and dance highlife to create a new sense of self for young people after the colonialist disruption of traditional modes of life and hierarchy. I then to turn to Schopenhauer and Nietzsche's ideas concerning aesthetic attunement which is disinterested and yet passionate in

00:39:48

013 Syncretism and Highlife Music of Ghana

Sound Philosophy ·

2020/09/21

This episode discusses syncretism (amalgamation of different religions, philosophies, cultures, or schools of thought) as it applies to music in the colonial situation of Ghana at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. Syncretism is not simple amalgamation, however. It can involve accommodation but it can also be a subtle form of rebellion. Using this concept as a platform, I turn to various forms of Ghanian popular music that fed into highlife and then the early years of highlife

00:41:10

012 WEB DuBois, Double Consciousness, and Bert...

Sound Philosophy ·

2020/09/21

This episode examines WEB DuBois's notion of "double consciousness," which he defines as a way in which Blacks have both the opportunity and the curse of seeing the world in a manner he suggests was unavailable to Whites. I read from the two essays in which DuBois employs the term and address some of the difficulties facing its interpretation. I then employ the term to examine the participation of Black performers in Blackface minstrelsy, specifically James Bland and Bert Williams. Our focus turns

00:49:03

011 An Improvisation on Nietzsche, Adorno, and the...

Sound Philosophy ·

2020/09/10

This episode explores the various issues surrounding musical improvisation. Is there such a thing as creatio ex nihilo? What is the role of the future and the past in improvisation? What is the role of tradition and freedom? I discuss some ideas on inspiration and improvisation in Nietzsche's Human, All-Too-Human, Adorno's objections to improvisation as it is generally practiced, improvisation in relation to the three modes (or syntheses) of time, and improvisation in relation to free will

00:37:49

010 Ragtime, Reversal, and Syncopation

Sound Philosophy ·

2020/09/07

Starting with the reversals of cultural borrowing or appropriation in the cakewalk, this episode examines ragtime and its various inversions or reversals. I discuss the emergence of ragtime out of the coon song with all of its problematic racial representations, the "problem" of Black music at the turn of the 20th century (and the lack of Black musical representation in the official program of the Columbian Exposition), the efforts of composers such as Scott Joplin to transform ragtime into a

00:50:42

009 Nietzsche Birth of Tragedy, Sections 3-25 and the...

Sound Philosophy ·

2020/09/07

This episode provides an overview of the remainder of The Birth of Tragedy with a focus on the emergence of the Socratic impulse and its connection to an overemphasis on logic and rationality at the expense of the instinctual drives of the Apollinian and the Dionysian. Then I discuss elements of the connection between the Apollinian and Dionysian as manifested in the "symbolic dream image." After introducing Herbert Marcuse's accusations against the conformity of modern society, I explore various

00:35:23

008 Nietzsche, Eternal Recurrence, and Repetition in...

Sound Philosophy ·

2020/08/27

This is the third episode in our series on Nietzsche. It examines the controversial and oft-misunderstood doctrine of the eternal recurrence for what it might tell us about the structuring of time (here I draw on Deleuze) and about how repetition in music operates in popular music. I review some of Adorno's complaints about popular music and the distinction between progressive time and repetitive time. I then turn to a discussion of how the notions of the Apollinian and Dionysian are transformed in

00:40:56

007 Nietzsche, Birth of Tragedy, Sections 1-2

Sound Philosophy ·

2020/08/23

We continue our multi-episode exploration of the thinking of Friedrich Nietzsche and its application to music. In this episode, we broach the generative antagonism Nietzsche believes is embodied in the interactions between what he terms the Apollinian and the Dionysian. These are not concepts; they are drives or instincts. They are as caught up in nature and the body as they are in philosophy and the mind. Indeed, for Nietzsche there is no easy distinction between mind and body. The Apollinian deals

00:33:36

006 Nietzsche, Birth of Tragedy: An Introduction

Sound Philosophy ·

2020/08/22

This is the first in a series of episodes examining the philosophies of Friedrich Nietzsche and their possible applications to the understanding of popular music. In this episode, I prepare us for a discussion of Nietzsche's first book The Birth of Tragedy by examining three of Nietzsche's predecessors: Immanuel Kant, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, and Arthur Schopenhauer. We investigate some selected aspects of their aesthetic and metaphysical thought--aspects that I will try to demonstrate either

00:38:05

005 Sousa, Nationalism, and Masculinity

Sound Philosophy ·

2020/08/19

This episode explores the rise to prominence of brass bands or marching bands after the U.S. Civil War. We discuss the shift in ideals of patriotism that follows the war, the emergence of the brass bands as an emblem of middlebrow nationalism, and the rejection of highbrow music at the Columbian Exposition of 1893. We then discuss John Phillip Sousa's contributions to the arguments surrounding copyright and his qualms about recorded music. We then examine Sousa's approach to march composition and

00:37:52

004 The 19th-Century Parlor Ballad

Sound Philosophy ·

2020/08/11

This episode examines the 19th-century parlor ballad as a genre that helped to define shifting notions of the family and womanhood in the United States. I start by reviewing the prerequisites for a robust music industry (necessary to support a prolific production of song) and then discuss changes the family underwent in the early 19th century with the shift from an agrarian lifestyle to a more modern, urbane mode of living. I then discuss the role of nostalgia and the idealization of women in the

00:38:23

003 Early Blackface Minstrelsy and the Racialized Other

Sound Philosophy ·

2020/08/03

This episode covers a difficult but central part of the history of American popular music: the rise of blackface minstrelsy in the late 1820s and early 1830s. In order to come to grips with the emergence of what was widely considered the first truly "American" form of music and theatrical entertainment, this episode explores the contradictory ways of understanding Blackness that suffused the practice of African transatlantic slavery, discusses the political and social situation of working-class

00:26:55

002 Colonial Music and the Copyright Act of 1790

Sound Philosophy ·

2020/07/19

This episode discusses the musical culture of the North American colonies and the early United States culminating in the Copyright Act of 1790. We will suggest that this law was an important step on the way toward establishing mass art as the primary form of cultural expression in the United States. We will also see that this law is not nearly as straightforward philosophically and legally as it might, at first, seem.

00:23:11

001 Popular Music and Mass Art

Sound Philosophy ·

2020/07/16

This, the first episode of Sound Philosophy, discusses some of the objections to popular music by philosophers and critics such as Gilles Deleuze, Theodor Adorno, Dwight Macdonald, and Clement Greenberg. We then discuss the notion of popular music as mass art.

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