3:30 PM
Prof. Trevor de Clercq (Middle Tennessee State University) presents “Why and How Should We Study and Teach Popular Music?”
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Musicology, Ethnomusicology and Music Theory Graduate Colloquium Series
Trevor de Clercq , Associate Professor in the Department of Recording Industry at Middle Tennessee State University, presents “Why and How Should We Study and Teach Popular Music?”.
Room 130, Edward Johnson Building, 80 Queen's Park, Toronto
FREE
All colloquia take place from 3:30 to 5 pm, unless otherwise noted, with a reception to follow from 5 to 6 pm.
Abstract
By definition, popular music is the music with which the most people will be the most familiar and thus about which they will be the most interested in learning. Yet many music departments today do not offer a degree pathway dedicated to popular music. In this talk, I consider the implications of this situation, particularly with regard to student retention as well as in light of recent critiques regarding racial and gender diversity. The first part of the talk looks at specific undergraduate and graduate music curriculums in the United States and Canada. What sort of classes, for example, are available to an undergraduate student interested in studying popular music? Similarly, to what extent are PhD graduates prepared for the job market, given recent data showing an increasing number of positions that are looking for someone able to teach popular music? The second part of the talk examines how we currently study popular music. Although scholarship on popular music has greatly increased in the past few decades, the distribution appears heavily skewed in favor of certain artists. I discuss ways to avoid this, most notably through corpus study methods, which I illustrate through a brief case study of rhythm and meter in R&B music. In contrast, graduate students in music are typically trained in analytical methods, focused on the interpretation of a single musical work. I conclude by thinking about what types of coursework would be necessary to study and teach popular music on the undergraduate and graduate level.
Biography
Trevor de Clercq is Associate Professor in the Department of Recording Industry at Middle Tennessee State University, where he coordinates the musicianship curriculum and teaches coursework in audio theory and music technology. His research focuses on the ways in which contemporary popular music departs from traditional theoretical frameworks developed primarily within the context of common-practice-era music, especially as shown through empirical methods. He holds a PhD in music theory from the Eastman School of Music.