| Kommentar |
This course introduces students to the description, analysis, and interpretation of popular music. We will focus mainly on the music of popular music, exploring (1) how it is structured, patterned, and organized, and (2) how it achieves its effects. We will consider various stylistically relevant musical features, such as form, melody, harmony, timbre, rhythm, and sound design. Students will build their skills in identifying and describing salient features in popular works, and they will learn to produce their own critically informed close readings of individual popular songs. We'll also look at ways others have modeled these skills. A wide range of musical styles will be discussed, though the course is not intended as a historical survey. |
| Literatur |
Adorno, Theodor W. 2002. “On Popular Music.” In Essays on Music: Theodor W. Adorno, edited by Susan H. Gillespie and Richard D. Leppert, 437–69. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Bennett, Samantha. 2018. Modern Records, Maverick Methods: Technology and Process in Popular Music Record Production 1978–2000. London: Bloomsbury.
Brennan, Matt. 2020. Kick It: A Social History of the Drum Kit. New York: Oxford University Press.
Butler, Mark J. 2006. Unlocking the Groove: Rhythm, Meter, and Musical Design in Electronic Dance Music. Profiles in Popular Music. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Covach, John. 2005. “Form in Rock Music: A Primer.” In Engaging Music: Essays in Music Analysis, edited by Deborah Stein, 65–76. New York: Oxford University Press.
Dockwray, Ruth, and Allan F. Moore. 2010. “Configuring the Sound-Box 1965–1972.” Popular Music 29 (2): 181–97.
Duguay, Michèle. 2022. “Analyzing Vocal Placement in Recorded Virtual Space.” Music Theory Online 28 (4). https://mtosmt.org/issues/mto.22.28.4/mto.22.28.4.duguay.html.
Everett, Walter. 2009. The Foundations of Rock: From “Blue Suede Shoes” to “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes.” Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press.
Frith, Simon. 1996. “Chapter 1: The Value Problem in Cultural Studies.” In Performing Rites: On the Value of Popular Music, 3–20. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Malawey, Victoria. 2020. A Blaze of Light in Every Word: Analyzing the Popular Singing Voice. Oxford Studies in Music Theory. New York: Oxford University Press.
Moore, Allan F. 2012. Song Means: Analysing and Interpreting Recorded Popular Song. Ashgate Popular and Folk Music Series. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate.
Nettl, Bruno. 2005. “I Can’t Say a Thing until I’ve Seen the Score: Transcription.” In The Study of Ethnomusicology: Thirty-One Issues and Concepts, 74–91. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press.
Sloan, Nate. 2021. “Taylor Swift and the Work of Songwriting.” Contemporary Music Review 40 (1): 11—26. https://doi.org/10.1080/07494467.2021.1945226.
Sloan, Nate, and Charlie Harding. 2020. Switched On Pop: How Popular Music Works, and Why It Matters. Switched On Pop. New York: Oxford University Press.
Tagg, Philip. 2014. Everyday Tonality II: Towards a Tonal Theory of What Most People Hear. 2.6.5. 2 vols. New York: The Mass Media Music Scholars’ Press.
Temperley, David. 2018. The Musical Language of Rock. New York: Oxford University Press.
Appen, Ralf van, and Markus Frei-Hauenschild. 2014. “AABA, Refrain, Chorus, Bridge, PreChorus — Songformen und ihre historische Entwicklung.” In Black Box Pop: Analysen populäre Musik, edited by Dietrich Helms and Thomas Phleps, 57–124. Germany: transcript. https://doi.org/10.14361/transcript.9783839418789.57.
Wallmark, Zachary. 2022. Nothing but Noise: Timbre and Musical Meaning at the Edge. New York: Oxford University Press.
Winkler, Peter. 1997. “Writing Ghost Notes: The Poetics and Politics of Transcription.” In Keeping Score: Music, Disciplinarity, Culture, 169–203. |
