History comes alive through music in this unique course featuring an acoustic string band that will perform and discuss popular American “old time tunes” that were directly influenced by the cultural interchange between European colonists and African Americans, both enslaved and free. You’ll hear examples of songs that were profoundly shaped by the musical traditions brought to North America by people from Africa, highlighting the contribution of syncopation in particular. We’ll explore the role of the African “banjar,” or spiked lute, alongside the fiddle, demonstrating the ways these instruments influenced key elements of both dance and popular music. We’ll also compare and contrast these songs with European music that was popular at the time of cultural contact in the early years of the United States. This course takes a musical tour through time, featuring performances of historic tunes from Appalachia, the Minstrel era, ragtime, work songs, and early blues.