Popular Music Studies A brief introduction Philip Tagg Montréal, March-July 2003, September 2004 Original version entitled Popular Music Studies: Progress or Falsification, The Rayson Huang Lecture, Music Department, University of Hong Kong, March 2003. www. tagg. org
Presentation overview 1. Popular Music — what is it? 2. Popular Music — why study it? 3. Popular music: problems of institutionalisation • Aesthetic prejudices • Pre-existing modes of institutionalising knowledge and the imperative of interdisciplinarity • Scribal and oral traditions, notation and recording • Historically defined and ongoing (‘unfinished’) traditions • Tendency to replace old canons with new ones 4. Suggestions for the future P Tagg HK 0303
‘Art’, ‘folk’ & ‘popular’: historical flowchart MUSIC (society with minimal division of labour) slavery, feudalism ART MUSIC FOLK MUSIC (courts, official religion) (slaves & proletariat) industrial capitalism ART MUSIC (publicly funded institutions) P Tagg HK 0303 FOLK MUSIC (rural proletariat) POPULAR MUSIC (industrial proletariat, middle couches)
Art, Folk, Popular music: distinguishing traits Main current mode of storage and distribution in West Main current modes of financing production and distribution in West P Tagg HK oral transmission folk staff notation art audio(visual) recording popular independent of monetary economy folk public funding, patronage art ‘free’ market popular
Summary of popular music’s distinguishing traits • a phenomenon of industrialised society • no formal training required to make or use • until recently excluded from officially sanctioned institutions of learning • most commonly stored and transmitted via audio(visual) recording • production and distribution most commonly financed acc. to rules of the ‘free’ market • cannot be defined in terms of musical structure • music that is neither ‘art’ nor ‘folk’ music P Tagg HK
Presentation overview 1. Popular Music —what is it? 2. Popular Music — why study it? 3. Popular music: problems of institutionalisation • Aesthetic prejudices • When and how did it enter the academy? • Pre-existing modes of institutionalising knowledge and the imperative of interdisciplinarity • Scribal and oral traditions, notation and recording • Historically defined and ongoing (‘unfinished’) traditions • Tendency to replace old canons with new ones 4. Suggestions for the future P Tagg HK
Music’s Ubiquity & Omnipresence almost ¼ of our waking life for example (estimates in mins. per day) • 70’ music on TV, DVD, VHS or at movies • 35’ music in shops, restaurants, bars, public places, at religious or sporting events, etc. • 30’ music on radio • 30’ music at work • 30’ music by conscious choice (home stereo, personal stereo, concerts, clubs, etc. ) • 10’ music in video games • 5’ music on mobile phones; telephone ‘hold’ music, etc. = 210 minutes = 3½ hours per day P Tagg HK
Music less important now? RIAA & IFPI say recorded music sales down 6% 1999 -2001 • Inventory & artist investment cut by 25% (12, 000 fewer releases to choose from), i. e more money made per release • Sales did not start declining until AFTER Napster was shut; freely uploaded ‘independent’ music excluded from figures • CD prices increased while average disposible income for all but top 5% decreased markedly in Europe & N. America • [1] Games sales $8. 9 bn. , movies $7. 4 bn. , music $13. 7 bn. (USA, 1999); [2] Mario has made twice as much money as all 5 Star Wars movies combined (Wired magazine, 2003); [3] ave. US child: video games 49 mins/day; [4] UK: game sales 60% > box office sales, 80% > VHS + DVD rentals; [5] cellphone ring-tone download rights turnover $1 bn (2002) • Veronis Schuler Stevenson (Aug. 2002) predict 6. 5% annual rise in consumer spending on media 2001 -2006 (6. 3% 19962001), mainly due to proliferation of cable/satellite TV and to P Tagg increase in cable rates 3 times > rate of inflation (USA & UK) HK
Presentation overview 1. Popular Music —what is it? 2. Popular Music — why study it? 3. Popular music: problems of institutionalisation • Aesthetic and social prejudices • When and how did popular music enter the academy? • Pre-existing modes of institutionalising knowledge and the imperative of interdisciplinarity • Scribal and oral traditions, notation and recording • Historically defined and ongoing (‘unfinished’) traditions • Tendency to replace old canons with new ones 4. Suggestions for the future P Tagg HK
Social and aesthetic prejudices about popular music in the academy • It’s not serious and it’s not art “Fun is never serious and serious art is never fun. ” • It’s too simple to be studied seriously “Some parameters and forms of musical expression are intrinsically more important than others. ” • Including it in university curricula would lower the standard and status of musical academe “The majority of people and their musical habits are not worth serious consideration: only the ‘chosen few’ and their musical habits should be studied at university level”. P Tagg HK
Institutional inertia of nomenclature New areas of study must be named and identified, for example: 1. Women (51% of humanity), whose lives and activities were largely excluded from conventional accounts of history and culture in the West, had to call studies of that excluded majority “Women’s Studies”, while the areas of study which excluded them needed no qualification as “history” or “culture”. 2. The music of the popular majority (much >51%), until recently excluded from (and still relatively marginalised in) institutionalised music studies in the West, had to be identified with a special qualifier — “popular” when it entered the academy, as if it were the exception, not the rule. • Question. Under the apartheid régime it was the Asian and African majority who had to carry identity cards, not the white minority. Why do studies that include women or the popular majority still need to be identified with a special qualifier (“women”, “popular”)?
Presentation overview 1. Popular Music —what is it? 2. Popular Music — why study it? 3. Popular music: problems of institutionalisation • Aesthetic and social prejudices • When and how did popular music enter the academy? • Pre-existing modes of institutionalising knowledge and the imperative of interdisciplinarity • Scribal and oral traditions, notation and recording • Historically defined and ongoing (‘unfinished’) traditions • Tendency to replace old canons with new ones 4. Suggestions for the future P Tagg HK
Popular Music Studies: dates 1877 -1931 1877 Edison invents phonograph 1888 Berliner invents flat disc grammophone 1892 1898 1903 1914 1918 1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1927 1931 P Tagg HK 1 st million seller (sheet music – After the Ball) HMV and DGG start mass production Caruso’s recording of Vesti la giubba sells 1 million ASCAP founded Original Dixieland Jazz Band sell 1 million of Tiger Rag 1 st electro-acoustic recording (London) Moving coil microphones invented BBC formed; 3 million radio sets in USA Bessie Smith: 1 st million seller recorded by a black woman Western Electric patent electro-magnetic recording 1 st sound film (Al Jolson in The Jazz Singer) released 127 sound films made (only 8 in 1929); Rickenbacker develops A model electric guitars
Popular Music Studies: dates 1934 -1960 1934 275, 000 juke boxes installed in USA over next 5 years; Bing Crosby most popular; Muzak corporation founded 1935 75% of BBC air time is music 1936 1 st tape-recorded concert (BASF/AEG) 1937 50% of record releases in USA are swing band recordings 1941 1 st electric blues broadcast in USA 1947 Transistors invented; Fender start producing amplifiers 1949 RCA introduce vinyl 45 rpm records 1950 ‘Hillbilly’ (C&W) accounts for 1/3 of record sales in USA 1951 1 st electric bass produced by Fender 1952 1 st reel-to-reel recorded stereo tapes produced by RCA 1955 Bill Haley: Rock Around The Clock; LP sales > singles Top 40 programming format introduced 1958 Mass production breakthrough for stereo 1960 200 million units of Crosby singing White Christmas P Tagg (Irving Berlin) sold since 1942 HK
Popular Music Studies: dates 1963 -1984 1963 Philips demonstrate 1 st compact audiocassette The Beatles: She Loves You and 1 st LP 1965 Rolling Stones: Satisfaction; Who: My Generation 1966 Moog synth. , Marshall amp. , Fender Rhodes piano 1967 Beatles: Sergeant Pepper; Hendrix: Are You Experienced? 1968 Woodstock Festival (300, 000 participants) 1971 Popular music starts in higher education at University of Göteborg (Sweden) and Berklee (Boston, USA) 1977 Philips show CDs at Tokyo audio fair 1980 Commercial breakthrough for video; Sony Walkman sells 5 million units in 1 st year (USA) 1981 MTV starts in USA; International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM); 1 st issue of Popular Music (CUP) 1983 CDs launched in USA and UK 1984 Cassette sales overtake vinyl LP sales; Forschungszentrum P Tagg populäre Musik (Humboldt-Universität, Berlin) founded HK
Popular Music Studies: dates 1985 -2000 mid 1980 s: CD ROMs, samplers, MIDI, digital synthesizers 1988 DAT recorders; CD sales overtake vinyl sales; Institute of Popular Music (Liverpool University) founded 1989 recordable CDs available 1990 More people recognise Mario than Mickey Mouse from music 1992 Ao. L stock listed on NASDAQ; Sony corp. announce 1 st loss; 1 st professor of Popular Music Studies (Berlin); DCCs & MDs marketed; Michael Jackson’s Thriller 40 mill. units in 10 yrs; Madonna signs 7 -yr $700 mill. contract 1994 Viacom buy Paramount (incl. MTV) for $10 billion; Pavarotti’s audio & video sales top 50 million units 1995 -… Mergers, ‘restructuring’: thousands lose jobs in music industry; internet distribution increasingly important music business courses (Edinburgh, Liverpool, etc. ) 1998 Specifications for DVD agreed 2000 Ao. L buys Time-Warner (incl. CNN, Compu. Serve, etc. ) P Tagg HK
Entrance of popular music studies into the academy: dates (1) 1930 -32 Musik und Gesellschaft: music educators, ethnomusicologists, composers express social concern about culture in daily life of popular majority in pre-fascist Germany 1940 s ‘Motivation research’ (USA): subsequently used to relate target groups to musical taste 1960 s [1] Frankfurt school: Adorno, Marcuse, notions of authenticity in counter-culture (Rolling Stone, USA). [2] Cultural Studies: (a) conceptual broadening of ‘culture’; media scholars with background in literary theory, political science, sociology, etc. ; (b) realisation of PMus music’s importance in constructing social identity of groups of young people subcultural theory (Birmingham, UK). [3] The Times: music critic suggests Lennon & Mc. Cartney as ‘composers of the year’ (London, 1964). [4] PMus on school curriculum (Sweden, 1969). P Tagg HK
![Entrance of popular music studies into the academy: dates (2) 1970 s [1] Teacher-training](https://present5.com/presentation/287550167954597c19d99c53203145ad/image-18.jpg "Entrance of popular music studies into the academy: dates (2) 1970 s [1] Teacher-training")
Entrance of popular music studies into the academy: dates (2) 1970 s [1] Teacher-training & university programmes start to include PMus (1 st Sweden, Austria, Germany; later in many other nations). [2] Colleges of Music start to include PMus (USA, Germany, UK, etc. ). 1980 s [1] IASPM formed (International Association for the Study of Popular Music) (Amsterdam, 1981); [2] 1 st issue of Popular Music (C. U. P. ) published. Popular Music Studies identified as interdisciplinary (and interprofessional) area of inquiry. 1980 s-90 s [1] Increased presence of PMus in tertiary education (cultural/media studies, music(ology), perf. arts colleges); [2] music business courses established. P Tagg HK
Presentation overview 1. Popular Music —what is it? 2. Popular Music — why study it? 3. Popular music: problems of institutionalisation • Aesthetic prejudices • When and how did it enter the academy? • Pre-existing modes of institutionalising knowledge and the imperative of interdisciplinarity • Scribal and oral traditions, notation and recording • Historically defined and ongoing (‘unfinished’) traditions • Temptation to replace old canons with new ones 4. Suggestions for the future P Tagg HK
General types of musical knowledge 1. Music as knowledge (knowledge in music) 2. Metamusical knowledge (about music) P Tagg HK
1. Music as knowledge (knowledge in music) 1 a. Constructional competence involves: creating, originating, producing, composing, arranging, performing, etc. institutionalised in: conservatories, colleges of music, etc. 1 b. Receptional competence involves: recalling & recognising musical sounds, distinguishing between them and between their culturally specific connotations and functions institutionalised in: ……? P Tagg HK
2. Metamusical knowledge (knowledge about music) 2 a. Metatextual discourse involves: ‘music theory’, conventional music analysis, identification and naming elements and patterns of musical structure, etc. institutionalised in: departments of music(ology), colleges of music, etc. 2 b. Metacontextual discourse involves: explaining how musical practices relate to culture and society, incl. approaches from semiotics, acoustics, business studies, sociology, anthropology, etc. P Tagg HK institutionalised in: departments of social science; literature, media, cultural studies.
Presentation overview 1. Popular Music —what is it? 2. Popular Music — why study it? 3. Popular music: problems of institutionalisation • Aesthetic prejudices • When and how did it enter the academy? • Pre-existing modes of institutionalising knowledge and the imperative of interdisciplinarity • Scribal and oral traditions, notation and recording • Historically defined and ongoing (‘unfinished’) traditions • Tendency to replace old canons with new ones 4. Suggestions for the future P Tagg HK
Scribal/oral, notation/recording 1. Hegemony of number and written word in academe, of the scribal, of the scopocentric (=fixated on vision) and relative neglect of non-verbal sound (oral/aural). 2. Tendency to privilege parameters of musical expression storeable in Western staff notation, developed to encode complexities intrinsic to various forms of Western art music, not those of other music cultures (timbre, micro-inflexion, cross-rhythm, etc. ). P Tagg HK
Presentation overview 1. Popular Music —what is it? 2. Popular Music — why study it? 3. Popular music: problems of institutionalisation • Aesthetic prejudices • When and how did it enter the academy? • Pre-existing modes of institutionalising knowledge and the imperative of interdisciplinarity • Scribal and oral traditions, notation and recording • Historically defined and ongoing (‘unfinished’) traditions • Tendency to replace old canons with new ones 4. Suggestions for the future P Tagg HK
‘Finished’ and ‘Unfinished’ Demands of established institutions: Recyclable study packages Canonic repertoire (e. g. classical, jazz…) Why? Facilitate ‘consistent assessment criteria’ over time Facilitate ‘league table’ comparison between institutions Facilitate management control and quantification exercises PMus is subject to ongoing change in terms of Technology Sociopolitical factors Meanings P Tagg HK Musical style Economic factors Fashions & fads
Presentation overview 1. Popular Music —what is it? 2. Popular Music — why study it? 3. Popular music: problems of institutionalisation • Aesthetic prejudices • When and how did it enter the academy? • Pre-existing modes of institutionalising knowledge and the imperative of interdisciplinarity • Scribal and oral traditions, notation and recording • Historically defined and ongoing (‘unfinished’) traditions • Tendency to replace old canons with new ones 4. Suggestions for the future P Tagg HK
‘Popular Music’: which music is studied? Examples In July 2000 I played ten short extracts of different sorts of music to about 100 participants at a conference of the UK branch of IASPM (International Association for the Study of Popular Music). I asked them to rate, on a scale from 0 -5, their opinion on how suitable each extract would be considered as the object of ‘popular music studies’. The extracts were played in the order listed below. 1. Johann Strauss (Jr. ) (1867): An der schönen blauen Donau 2. The Beatles (1967): A Day In The Life 3. Les Baxter (1957): Jungalero 4. Zara (2000): Plenitsa (Bulgarian chalga music) 5. Madonna (1991): Justify My Love [12”] (prod. W Orbit) 6. Bernard Herrmann (1960): Psycho - The Shower 7. Sam Hui: Cheers!/Yum Sing (Cantopop) 8. The Brecker Brothers (1975) Some Skunk Funk 9. The Sex. Pistols (1977): God Save The Queen 10. Snog (1992): Corporate Slave Results of this musical questionnaire are in the next slide which shows the extracts re-arranged in order of ‘suitability’, % values indicating how likely conference participants considered each extract to be the object of ‘popular music studies’. P Tagg HK
Examples in order of ‘suitability’ to be studied 1. The Sex. Pistols (1977): God Save The Queen — 92% 2. The Beatles (1967): A Day In The Life — 91% 3. Madonna (1991): Justify My Love [12”] (prod. W Orbit) — 86% 4. Snog (1992): Corporate Slave — 71% 5. The Brecker Brothers (1975) Some Skunk Funk — 61% 6. Zara (2000): Plenitsa (Bulgarian chalga music) — 57% 7. Les Baxter (1957): Jungalero — 40% 8. Sam Hui: Cheers! (Yum Sing) — 36%? 9. Bernard Herrmann (1960): Psycho - The Shower — 30% 10. Johann Strauss (Jr. ) (1867): An der schönen blauen Donau — 27% P Tagg HK
![Canonic quotes ‘Passions must be powerful, the musician’s feelings [must be] unfettered — no](https://present5.com/presentation/287550167954597c19d99c53203145ad/image-30.jpg "Canonic quotes ‘Passions must be powerful, the musician’s feelings [must be] unfettered — no")
Canonic quotes ‘Passions must be powerful, the musician’s feelings [must be] unfettered — no mind control, … no clever ideas… (Diderot: Le neveu de Rameau, 1762) [Listening to music the right way means] ‘fully surrendering the spirit to the welling torrent of sensations and disregarding every disturbing thought’… (Wackenroder, 1792) ‘[T]he power of pop lies not in its meaning but in its noise, … the non -signifying, extra-linguistic elements that defy “content analysis”: the grain of the voice, the materiality of the sound, the biological effect of the rhythm, the fascination of the star’s body’ (Reynolds 1990). Music excites the body to automatic movement, an exhilaration that defeats boredom and inspires insight… Music gives the body control over itself, granting personal freedom and revealing sexual potential’ (Lull 1992)
P Tagg HK 0303 Institutionalisation processes (1) classical music popular music started mid C 19 - 1970 s- education institutions created conservatories, music(ology) depts. media/cultural studies, performing arts colleges canonic heritage European ‘classical’ from C 18 & C 19 (esp. instr. ) first jazz, then Anglophone rock/pop conservation old music increasingly tendencies dominates repertoire 1960 s: v few re-issues; 1999: 60% of sales back catalogue international Central European mus. Idiom (mainly Germanic) Anglo-N. American global hegemony US corporate capitalism European colonialism
P Tagg HK 0303 Institutionalisation processes (2) classical music popular music liberties, attitude to pleasure liberation of the ego, liberation of the id, emotionality, postponed corporeality, immediate gratification hegemonic class movement merchant class v. feudal aristocracy & 4 th estate buzzwords of ‘excellence’ high, sublime, superior, cool, fun, moving, great, art, masterpiece, entertaining, hip, sexy, genius striking examples of state appropriation Händel (mass appeal) Handel, represents UK state power Queen’s Jubilee (2002): Brian May, Eric Clapton, Brian Wilson, etc. UK knighthoods bestowed Charles Stanford, Hubert Parry, Edward Elgar, Ralph Vaughan-Williams, Arthur Bliss, William Walton, Michael Tippett Cliff Richard, George Martin, Paul Mc. Cartney, Bob Geldof, Elton John, Michael Jagger (+ Dame financial/managerial élite v. old capitalism & new lumpenproletariat Shirley Bassey + Van Morrison, etc. , OBE)
Presentation overview 1. Popular Music —what is it? 2. Popular Music — why study it? 3. Popular music: problems of institutionalisation • Aesthetic prejudices • When and how did it enter the academy? • Pre-existing modes of institutionalising knowledge and the imperative of interdisciplinarity • Scribal and oral traditions, notation and recording • Historically defined and ongoing (‘unfinished’) traditions • Tendency to replace old canons with new ones 4. Suggestions for the future P Tagg HK
Future — General Measures 1. Increase awareness about the importance of non-verbal sound (incl. music) in modern society. 2. Raise the status of music in education and research to a level commensurate with its proven social and economic importance. 3. Make constructional competence in music (and visual arts) an essential part of general education in the same way as linguistic competence. 4. Demystify the role of music as a means of communication. P Tagg HK
Future — Some measures for consideration in higher education (1) 1. Ongoing stylistic & social change: teaching constructional competence through apprenticeship as well as through basic skills programmes. 2. Core knowledge (all 4 types) of PMus required of every music(ology) student (incl interdisciplinarity). 3. Ethnomusicological method applied to study of musical practices of own (local) ‘ethnos’, not just to those of people in far-off places. 4. Time for staff to keep up with ongoing changes of style, technology, social formations, e. g. current need for music in new audiovisual media (incl. games, cable TV, etc. ). 5. Encourage young researchers to choose topics in PMus sphere, otherwise no-one to teach the subject! 6. Provide opportunities for ‘musicologists of the popular’ to publish findings without fear of copyright prosecution. P Tagg HK
Future — Some measures for consideration in higher education (2) 7. Provide opportunities for general educational materials in PMus (incl. repertoire) to be produced and disseminated on a not-for-profit basis without fear of copyright infringement. 8. Encourage innovative research into Western classical music, e. g. how classical became ‘classical’, corporeal and popular aspects of classical music, crossovers between popular and avant-garde, etc. 9. Ongoing review of canonic repertoire in local and international PMus traditions 10. Develop new and existing forms of international, interdisciplinary and interprofessional cooperation; important role for non-Anglo and/or non-’first-world’ nations. P Tagg HK
End slide Special thanks to: Anthony Cheng Karen Collins Wendy Leung Manolete Mora Anders Nelsson Jimi Wong and the staff of the HKU Music Department For further information, see www. tagg. org Thank you for your kind attention. All good wishes!
Скачать презентацию Popular Music Studies A brief introduction Philip Tagg
287550167954597c19d99c53203145ad.ppt