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1 study of popular music 2014(2)

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popular music as an academic study 2013
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Page 1: 1 study of popular music 2014(2)

popular music as an academic study

2013

Page 2: 1 study of popular music 2014(2)

What is it?

!  Definitions. !  Why should we study it? !  Study as part of higher education

Page 3: 1 study of popular music 2014(2)

Popular music and the masses

!   One definition is that poplar music is ‘Music of the masses’ (I.e.expanding urban middle classes).

!   Mass market for pulished music since the tin-pan alley era in the USA and Europe (1880s - 1930s).

!   Dissemination by sheet music, then also gramophone and later forms of recorded sound.

!   Exploited for commercial gain. Popular because it sold well.

!   From the 60s it has become a world-wide phenomena dominated by North American forms and styles.

Page 4: 1 study of popular music 2014(2)

History of Popular Music

!  The sound track to ordinary lives? !  Most obvious and universal part of

mass culture.

Page 5: 1 study of popular music 2014(2)

Post 1949 !   Records return with the 45 and improved

gramophones. !   The era of the phonograph ends with invention of

magnetic tape and reel to reel. Studio techniques now possible.

!   1952 brings first attempts at a chart listings. !   America with its many independent studios and radio

stations is the fulcrum for new form of popular music aimed at a new youth audience.

!   Throughout 50s sale of pop records rises though always linked to air time on radio and tv programmes.

Page 6: 1 study of popular music 2014(2)

Pop Industry

!  By late 50s pop industry as we know it is in place.

!  Based on Anglo-American commercial networks.

!  Has survived until now – but arguable in crisis and has a uncertain future.

Page 7: 1 study of popular music 2014(2)

Other reas of Mass Musical Activity pre

1960s – areas of research

!  Brass bands - for parades and street marching events.

!  Social Dancing - boom in cheap dance halls.

!  Music Halls - urban entertainment before the age of television.

!  Singing clubs, hand bells, etc.

Page 8: 1 study of popular music 2014(2)

Mass Culture Theory – the starting point

!   Concepts of Mass Culture and Mass Society based on divisions into:

!   1. High Art – not for commercial gain (supposedly). Beethoven, etc.

!   2. Folk Art- from below as an expression of the people

!   3. Mass Media/Mass Culture !   Mass culture theory holds that through `atomisation’

individuals can only relate to each other like atoms in a chemical compound. Individuals are vulnerable to exploitation by core institutions of mass media and pop culture. (example of rise of Nazism in 1930s and Orwell’s 1984)

Page 9: 1 study of popular music 2014(2)

Critique of Mass Culture Theory

!   1. The `view from below’ is quite different. Working class use elements of mass culture to strike a pose. Does not result in greater cultural uniformity. All can interpret the American myth as they wish.

!   2. Consumers are not passive. But use different elements of Americanisation and European culture to construct an authentic identity.

!   3. Pop culture is diverse because it is open to diverse uses and interpretations by different groups.

!   4. Use as a defense against middle class/upper class elitist culture.

Page 10: 1 study of popular music 2014(2)

Critique continued…. !   5. Why should the superiority of elitist values and

aesthetics be taken as valid without question? What gives them the right to pass cultural judgment?

!   6. The idea of that there was an idealised (elitist) cultural past fated to be ruined by the rise of mass culture is a myth.

!   7. Audiences and the consuming public are not passive. They may construct their identity from different elements of mass culture in a creative way.

Page 11: 1 study of popular music 2014(2)

Frankfurt School – 1923 School of Social

Research !   1. Full of leftwing Jewish intellectuals. To a backdrop

of the rise of Nazi party in 1930s. Most fled Europe for America. Then turned against America and returned to Germany.

!   2. Set terms of debate and analysis of mass culture theory. Heavily based on reaction to pre-war popular music in Germany and post-war American popular music.

!   3. Main members – Adorno, Horkheimer, Marcus, Benjamin.

Page 12: 1 study of popular music 2014(2)

Arguments against popular music as academic study

!  Waste of time for highly trained academic musicians to concern themselves with trivial music - which primarily about non-musical facets of mass culture. Image, timbre, social meaning.

!  High art is in decline - if even music students desert it who will champion it?

Page 13: 1 study of popular music 2014(2)

New Generation

!  Sociologists interested in music as part of mass culture.

!  1970s looking at ‘youth culture’. !  Simon Frith’s The Sociology of Rock’

1978 examines the consumption, production and ideology of rock.

Page 14: 1 study of popular music 2014(2)

Sociology of Rock

!  He explores rock as !   ‘leisure, as youth culture, as a force for liberation or oppression,

and a background music. He argues that rock music is mass cultural form which derives its meaning and relevance from being a mass medium. He discusses the differences in perception and use of rock between the music industry and music consumers, as well as differences within those groups: "The industry may or may not keep control of rock's use, but it will not be able to determine all its meanings - the problems of capitalist community and leisure are not so easily resolved."

Page 15: 1 study of popular music 2014(2)

Theories

!  Mass culture theory. !  Links with Sociology. !  Often placed within media studies. !   Is it really primarily concerned with

music - more about social behaviour, commsumerism and media.

Page 16: 1 study of popular music 2014(2)

1980 and 1990s

!  University departments took up popular music as a research area.

!  Undergraduate teaching. !  Specialist Centres – University of

Newcastle. John Moore’s Liverpool, Oxford Brooks

!  Work of Tagg, Middleton and Covach in 1990s

Page 17: 1 study of popular music 2014(2)

Analysis of Pop Music

!  One of the recurring themes has been to develop methods of analysis of popular music. That did not only look at the harmonic melodic content but looked at other parameters.

!  Using methods of other disciplines. Textual analysis, subject position

!  Developing modified forms of notation.

Page 18: 1 study of popular music 2014(2)

SONG FORM

l  Intro l  Hook l  Verse l  Chorus l  Pre chorus l  Middle Eight l  Instrumental l  Chorus to Fade/Outro

Page 19: 1 study of popular music 2014(2)

Examples in last session

!  All F. Moore The Beatles Sgt Peppers Lonely Heart’ Club band ‘Lucy in the Sky’ (CUP).

!   John Covach and Greame M. Boon Understanding Rock (OUP)

!  Shinny happy people.


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