Popular Music and Informal Pedagogy in Music Education

Joseph Abramo, Ed. D.Assistant Clinical Professor of Music Education

Neag School of EducationUniversity of Connecticut

Storrs, CTjoseph.abramo@uconn.edu

@joseph_abramo

Colloquium on Assessment,Neag School of Education

Overview

• Why popular music?

• An educator’s definition of popular music

• Composing and Creating Popular Music• Student Examples• Guidelines and suggestions for implementing this

into various classrooms

• Listening to, watching, and analyzing popular music.

• Dilemmas and questions with popular music in schools

• Questions and Discussion

How do people experience music?

http://www.statista.com/statistics/188910/us-music-album-sales-by-genre-2010/

Three questions teachers must ask themselves:

• What characterizes the world my students inhabit everyday?

• Am I educating them to intelligently maneuver the musical aspects of that world?

• Am I using that world to the best of my ability to accomplish my curricular goals?

Student-Centered

What is the “philosophy” behind teaching popular music

• Christopher Small

• Music is not a noun but a verb

• Musicking

• “Music is not a thing at all but an activity, something people do. The apparent thing “music” is a figment, an abstraction of the action, whose reality vanishes as soon as we examine it at all closely” (p. 2).

What is the “philosophy” behind teaching popular music

• From Christopher Small’s perspective, popular music is not what it sounds like, but how people make music.

What is the “philosophy” behind teaching popular music

• Lucy Green has documented profound differences between the processes of classical and popular musicians. Popular Musicians:

• learn music aurally as opposed to through notation, • build technique through the practice and performance

of songs rather than scales and exercises, • understand music through metaphor, • the time they devote to practice was malleable and

only done if they consider it fun. • learn music from copying recordings and being

“encultured,” or immersed in that musical culture and learning from family and peers.

What is the “philosophy” behind teaching popular music

• Randall Allsup studied the practices of classical and popular musicians and how composing in small groups affected process and the formation of community.

• He found that the style of music the students chose to write in had a direct affect on how they worked together.

• One group he studied chose to write classical music and ended up working as isolated individuals. After spending large amounts of time through this process, with little to show for it, they switched to writing jazz and rock, worked collaboratively and thus increased their input.

What do these studies tell us?

• What defines popular music is the process.

• The popular music process is different than the processes in classical settings and schools.

• Students are more productive when they work in groups than when they work as individuals.

• Genre has an influence on how students work together.

Dot, Dot, Dot

• Beginning process of composing the song• How do students communicate with each

other?• How do students generate ideas?• How do students reflect on their music?• What’s the role of the teacher? Transcript

• The finished product• Form• Arrangement• Lyrics

Form of Dot, Dot, Dot

Hear the piece and see the score

Dot, Dot, Dot LyricsVerse 1Oh Baby don’t botherCause I don’t want to knowAnd Honey you are crazyIf you think I’ll let you go I just heard “Sweetie you’re not…”A-a-a-nything can come after the dot dot

dot ChorusFlipped the mattress but the sheets

weren’t changedFeels like something’s different but it’s

still all the sameYou think that I’m dramatic but I blow

you awayThey saw that we won’t make it when

we’re really ok.We might be kind of pointless but you

sure mean a lotBut when I’m in your arms you know

that I’m all you got. 

Verse 2and Baby don’t botherCause you’re making a fussAnd Honey you’re crazyIf you think it’s about trustI just heard “Sweetie you’re not…”A-a-a-nything can come after the dot dot dot Chorus Chorsey breaky thingKeep it Keep itonly to find that when yourSecrets Secretssound just like mine, you’ll see the Regret Regretin the whole time to show IMean it Mean itthat we’ll be fine

Jam #12

• Beginning process of composing the song• How do students communicate with each

other?• How do students generate ideas?• How do students reflect on their music?• What’s the role of the teacher? Transcript

• The finished product• Form• Lyrics

Form of Jam #12

Hear the piece and watch the score

Jam #12 LyricsPresidential race 2008Civilized culture and still the world is filled with hateCorporate sellouts always promising changeHow much does it cost to buy a candidate? ChorusThis can’t go on any longerIt’s our nation make it strongerThe heart is black and the money is greenFighting wars for profit fueled by greed

Major news stations, always they decideWho’s in the spotlight and who’s forced to hideThe truest Americans, the honest candidatesThey ain’t even allowed in the televised debates

Gender and Popular Music

• My research suggests that there are difference between the ways boys and girls create music

• Girls compartmentalize their talking and playing

• Boys work in a constant wash of sound

• Girls tend to talk more than boys

• This mirrors research on play

Gender and Popular Music

• Lyrics• Girls tend to write about relationships• Boys write about “bigger” issues than personal,

like politics

• Both ways of creating music are legitimate.

• The point of this research is not to change students but to be inclusive of different ways students might solve musical tasks.

Let it Be RapYo my click bleep now like 12 from the apostles [???]And bust down bottles and bust down tahoes. [???]Jewels, Fros, look like we hit the lottoP89 my clip filled with hallowsStuck in the club we all hit with bottlesDon’t speak now if your neck don’t swallow‘Cause 50 [Cent] pushed Bentleys and [Dr.] Dre pushed DiablosAnd Eminem got cash in my escrow [??? probably not] I’ve got G unit dickies, G unit velours, G unit tank top, G unit

drawersNow I’m moving product at the G unit storesAnd [???] G unit FloorWhen they’re hot they like to screw youRemember this, I got more control over your life than you do.I said, Red heads all up in your [???] everybody aiming for your

[???]

What do we do about this?...

• Were these lyrics inappropriate?

• Teacher needs to know “what’s going on.”

• How do we take care of these things without squashing creativity?

What can we gather these songs?

• Writing popular music is extremely personal

• It is not fluff: it can deal with issues like politics, and can be poetic

• Is not “cookie-cutter” composing; students can explore and use different forms, harmonies, etc.

• Teachers need to be “in the know.”

How to make this happen

• Allsup and Baxter

• Ask open, guided, and closed questions

• Open: what are we going to compose today?

• Guided: in what ways can we express an emotion?

• Closed: should we use G major or C major here?

How to make this happen

• Do not compose with overly specific goals• Don’t specify the number of measures• Don’t make them focus on one element of

music• If can be avoided, don’t give them a chord

progression

• Instead compose for the reasons composer compose: to create music. From what the students give you, create concepts.

Helpful strategies to facilitate a creative popular music composition experience

• Questions?• Time for a break?

Listening to, Watching and Analyzing Popular Music

• What is popular music good for. • Rap teaches the Scottish Snap!• Hip Hop Harry• Don’t Bait and Switch• Popular music has merit on its own

Cultural Studies

• Music as Text• Music and other texts are polysemic (have

multiple meanings).

Cultural Studies

• Hall, S. (1980 [1973]). Encoding/decoding. Culture, Media, Language: Working Papers in Cultural Studies, 1972-79 Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (Ed.): London: Hutchinson, pp. 128-38.

• Readings:• Dominant• Oppositional• Negotiated

Imagine

• John Lennon• A Perfect Circle

Run The World (Girls), by Beyonce

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBmMU_iwe6U&safe=active

Dominant Reading: Female Empowerment

I'm reppin' for the girls who taking over the worldHelp me raise a glass for the college gradsThis goes out to all my girlsThat's in the club rocking the latestWho will buy it for themselves and get more money laterI'm reppin' for the girls who taking over the worldHelp me raise a glass for the college grads

Boy I know you love itHow we're smart enough to make these millionsStrong enough to bear the childrenThen get back to business

Dominant Reading: Female Empowerment

Oppositional Reading: Women's

ObjectificationMy persuasion can build a nationEndless powerWith our love we can devourYou'll do anything for me

Oppositional Reading: Women's

Objectification

• Macklemore: Wings

Issues

• What constitutes a “dominant” reading? How do we know it is dominant?

Dilemmas

• This work is political (but not Political or partisan)

• You are inviting in controversial issues• But English teachers do this all the time (i.e.

Catcher in the Rye)

• This is harder than relying on the notes alone

• Harlem Shake• Harlem reacts to the Harlem Shake

Summary

• Dominant, Oppositional, and Negotiated Readings allow students both to critically examine and celebrate popular culture. By reading through lenses, it allows distance between them and the text, and allows them to not take critique of “their” music personally.

Summary

• Popular Music can accomplish traditional and established goals in music education:

• It can be used to compose and let students be creative. When doing this teachers should start open and close parameters only when needed, using open, guided, and then closed questions.

• By using dominant, oppositional, and negotiated readings, teachers can ask students to question to interpret music and videos, making connections to sociological questions, and coming to multiple interpretations and conclusions.

Questions and discussion

Works Cited

• Abramo, J. M. (2011). Queering informal pedagogy: Sexuality and popular music in the schools. Music Education Research, 13(4), 447-459.

• Abramo, J. M. (2011). Gender differences of popular music production in secondary schools. Journal of Research in Music Education, 59(1), 21-43. 

• Abramo, J. (2011). Gender differences in the popular music compositions of high school students. Music Education Research International, 5, 1-11.

• Allsup, R. E. (2003a). Mutual learning and democratic action in instrumental music education. Journal of Research in Music Education, (51)1, 24-37.

Works Cited

• Green, L. (2002). How popular musicians learn: A way ahead for music education. Burlington, VT: Ashgate.

• Green, L. (2008). Music, informal learning and the school: A new classroom pedagogy. Burlington, VT: Ashgate.

• Hall, S. (1980 [1973]). Encoding/decoding. Culture, Media, Language: Working Papers in Cultural Studies, 1972-79 Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (Ed.): London: Hutchinson, pp. 128-38.

• Small, C. (1998). Musicking: The meanings of performance and listening. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.