MUSIC 26AC Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Coon Song, Silliness, Body Percussion
Rae Reords ad Hillilly Musi Otoer 5,
7
• Rae ad other key ters
o Race: classification system that signifies and symbolizes social differences by referring to
various types of human bodies
▪ Practices and behaviors usually get tied to race
▪ Social differences
▪ Proposed as biological (nothing to point at the cellular level to differentiate between
races)
▪ No scientific basis
▪ No historical shifting and constructed
▪ Still has material consequences
o Ethnicity: notion of people joined by a shared heritage (ie: ancestry, religion, geographic
location)
▪ Generally claimed by people in a group, not placed onto them by outside entities
▪ Recognizing agency of the people that claim these identities
• Minstresly: theatrical and popular musical tradition in America that was prominent in the 1800s; a
form of racially charged entertainment
o Stereotypical representations of black music and people (other groups as well, including
Chinese, Scottish, immigrants)
o Stereotype: a generalized or simplified representation made to stand in for a whole
▪ A widely held but accurate or false understanding about a particular category of
person or thing
o 1950 Blackface performance (Vernon and Ryan)
▪ Exaggerated accessories: big shoes, large flower, bowtie
• Silliness in representing characters
▪ Performance ads made it clear that it was a white man that was performing as the
black man
o 2 types of black men represented:
▪ Jim Crow: wore more tattered clothing because he was a person living in a rural,
poor, and southern landscape
▪ Zip Coon: associated with urban spaces; wore nicer quality clothes that were more
dressy; someone who appears to be sophisticated but has a primitive quality
o Southern space being evoked
▪ Dress: plaid, oeralls, looks dirty, otto fields ak-breaking labor), cabin house
▪ Attitude of Jolso’s harater: hipper attitude, du ad oerly happy that reflets
stupidity, he’s liig the drea
• Coon song: popular style in the late 19th century that featured offensive racial stereotypes and made
up black dialects in lyrics
• Banjo connected to black/blackness
o Shifts as it later signifies rural whiteness when the music industry differentiates between
black music and country music
• Old Folks at Hoe y “tephe Foster
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