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Popular and Global Music

Vak
2024-2025

Admission requirements

There are no admission requirements for this elective course.

Description

With the opening of the transnational media market in the 1950s, the American popular song reached new audiences on an unprecedented scale. Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Bill Haley, and many others, became the icons of a new global space of interaction. The rest is history: the British Invasion, punk music, hip hop, and so on—all flagships of the global music industry today. But is this global dimension all there is to popular music? From the Latin popularis, popular means prevalent among the people. By that standard, many other musical materials worldwide should be labelled popular too. In this course, students explore the tension between the definitions of popular and global by examining diverse repertoires with a focus on formal features and social practices. Said materials include several styles of rock, pop and dance music, as well as traditions from Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas.

Course objectives

By the end of the course, students will be able to:

  • Compare central concepts in contemporary music categorisation, such as popular and global.

  • Analyse popular songs using the method of Embodies Musical Analysis.

  • Recognise and compare formal features of diverse musical styles with an emphasis on rhythm.

  • Interpret their own musical experiences from a critical standpoint and in awareness of prevalent metanarratives.

  • Explain the role of legal, economic, and technological factors in the development of popular and global music.

Timetable

The timetables are available through My Timetable.

Mode of instruction

Lectures and workshops

Assessment method

Description: Percentage:

  • Active Participation 25%

  • Homework 25%

  • Presentations 25%

  • Final Exam 25%

The final mark for the course is established by determining the weighted average.

Reading list

  • Bennett, A. (2012), Reappraising «Counterculture». Volume! [Online], 9(1).

  • Connell, J. and Gibson, C. (2004), World music: Deterritorializing Place and Identity. Progress in Human Geography 28 (3), 342-362.

  • Cook, M.A. (2012), Music Theory (selected passages). Licensed under the Creative Commons by-nc-sa 3.0 license, attribution to the original authors and publisher removed as per the publisher's request.

  • Findeisen, F. (2015), The Addiction Formula (selected chapters), Enschede: Albino Publishing.

  • Frith, S. (2001), Pop Music. In Frith, S., Straw, W. and Street, J., (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Pop and Rock, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

  • Krämer, B. (2011), The Mediatization of Music as the Emergence and Transformation of Institutions: A Synthesis. International Journal of Communication 5 (2011), 471–491.

  • Kwon, H. (2017), Korean Pop Music and Korean Identities: A Political-Cultural History of Korean Pop Music and Its Use of Traditional Korean Musical Elements. In Shin, H. and Lee, S-A., (eds.), Made in Korea: Studies in Popular Music, New York and Oxon: Routledge.

  • Middleton, R. (1993), Popular Music Analysis and Musicology: Bridging the Gap. Popular Music, 12 (2), 177-190.

  • Peterson, R.A. (2004), Why 1955? Explaining the Advent of Rock Music. In Frith, S., (ed.) Popular Music: The Rock Era, London, New York: Routledge.

  • Roos, C. (2022), The American Groove of the 1950s: Remixing the Archive as a Wall of Sound. Leidschrift, 37(3).

  • Wallis, R. and Malm, K. (1990), Patterns of Change. In Frith, S. and Goodwin, A., (eds.), On Record: Rock, Pop and the Written Word, London: Routledge. pp. 160-180.

Brightspace

Brightspace will be used for:

  • reading materials

  • assignments

  • grading

  • communication etc.

Registration

Enrolment through uSis is mandatory.
General information about uSis is available on the website

Contact

Lecturer: Dr. C.M. Roos Muñoz
Coordinator: Dhr. ir. R.T.W.L. Schneemann

Remarks

For other courses in the domains of music and fine arts, please visit:

[Elective courses music and fine arts](https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/humanities/academy-of-creative-and-performing-arts/tuition "Elective courses music and fine arts")