Popular music analysis and musicology: bridging the gap

Popular Music ◽  
1993 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-190 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Middleton
Keyword(s):  
Popular Music ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Music Analysis ◽  
The Other ◽  
Popular Music Studies ◽  
Popular Music Analysis ◽  
Willingness To Engage

Since their beginnings, popular music studies have conducted an implicit (sometimes explicit) dialogue with musicology. To be sure, the musicological side of this conversation has more often than not been marked by insult, incomprehension or silence; and popular music scholars for their part have tended to concentrate on musicology's deficiencies. But musicology is changing (more about this later); at the same time, recent work on popular music suggests a new confidence, manifesting itself in part in a willingness to engage with and adapt mainstream methods. I believe each needs the other.

scholarly journals Same As It Ever Was? Musicology Continues to Wrestle with Rock

2013 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Fast
Keyword(s):  
Popular Music ◽  
Music Theory ◽  
Music Analysis ◽  
The West ◽  
Professional Musicians ◽  
Popular Music Studies ◽  
Social Meanings ◽  
Important Means ◽  
Popular Music Analysis

Popular music studies is approached from a number of disciplinary perspectives. Most recently, musicologists and music theorists have become interested in the analysis of popular music. This has sparked heated debates both within musicology and music theory, and outside it from sociologists and other cultural critics. The author traces some of that debate and argues for a popular music analysis that takes social meanings into account, using language that does not alienate those who are not professional musicians. It is argued that this is of paramount importance, since popular music is one of the most important means through which many people in the West shape their worlds.

Pop and the Nation-State: towards a theorisation

Popular Music ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Cloonan
Keyword(s):  
Popular Music ◽  
State Level ◽  
The Other ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Popular Music Studies ◽  
Music Scene ◽  
The One

Recent years have seen two noticeable trends in Popular Music Studies. These have been on the one hand a series of works which have tried to document the ‘local’ music scene and, on the other, accounts of processes of globalisation. While not uninterested in the intermediate Nation-State level, both trends have tended to regard it as an area of increasingly less importance. To state the matter more boldly, both trends have underplayed the continually important role of the Nation-State.

scholarly journals Analysing popular music: theory, method and practice

Popular Music ◽  
1982 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 37-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Tagg
Keyword(s):  
Popular Music ◽  
Music Theory ◽  
Music Analysis ◽  
Theory Method ◽  
Field Of Study ◽  
Popular Music Analysis

Popular music analysis-why? One of the initial problems for any new field of study is the attitude of incredulity it meets. The serious study of popular music is no exception to this rule. It is often confronted with an attitude of bemused suspicion implying that there is something weird about taking ‘fun’ seriously or finding ‘fun’ in ‘serious things’. Such attitudes are of considerable interest when discussing the aims and methods of popular music analysis and serve as an excellent introduction to this article.

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