Pre College Academy

Pre-College Online Courses


MUSC 101P:  History of Rock and R&B
Eric Charry, professor of music


Image of Eric Charry
Eric Charry

This course will survey the history of rock and r&b (rhythm & blues)
--broadly defined as a conglomeration of loosely connected musical
genres, including rock ‘n’ roll, folk rock, soul, funk, heavy metal,
punk, and rap, among others--from their origins in the late 1940s
and ‘50s through the early 1990s.


Three parallel goals will be pursued:

1.  To become literate in a broad range of the constituent traditions of rock;
2.  To become familiar with a variety of theoretical and journalistic approaches to understanding the music, examining issues such as economics of the industry, race relations and identities, youth culture and its relationship to American popular culture, and popular music as a creative, cultural, and social force; and
3.  To experience the workings of the music industry by producing group projects.

Assignments will include video quizzes and discussion, listening comparisons, a review essay, a midterm and final exam, as well as a final project in which the class will form a music industry in microcosm producing audio and video recordings and a magazine.

This course will run asynchronously from September 30 through November 22, with students completing weekly assignments on their own schedule.

To maintain the small seminar experience, enrollment is limited to a maximum of 20 students.

Click here to view the Course Syllabus.


Eric Charry is Professor of Music at Wesleyan University, where he has taught History of Rock and R&B to about 1,000 students over the past decade. He has published widely on African music and jazz, and his most recent book is the edited collection Hip Hop Africa. He is currently working on a book, A Concise History of Rock and R&B from its Origins through the Early 1990s, which will be used as a text for this course.


Here are a several samples of class projects from Charry's undergraduate History of Rock and R&B course at Wesleyan from recent years:
Class magazine (2012)
Class magazine (2013)
Catan (2011)
Philadelphia (2012)
So Jiggly (2013)