adam patrick bell
  • About
  • Blog
  • CV
  • Music Reel (password required)
    • Commercial Music
    • Film Music
    • Popular Music

The Process of Production | The Production of Process: A Plan for Popular Music Pedagogy

1/27/2021

1 Comment

 
Note: This is the original version of the chapter from 2016 with some added visuals and videos. The published version is available here. 
​Bugs Potter, Me, and Music Education
Picture
In Who Is Bugs Potter? (1980), Canadian writer Gordon Korman candidly captured the musical culture clash that occurs in the traditional high school music classroom. Bugs, who hails from Winnipeg, is a progressive rock aficionado. He is never without his trusty drumsticks if he can help it, and if he is not drumming, he is either talking about drumming or thinking about drumming. Along with some other young talented musicians from across North America, Bugs is invited to participate in an all-star youth orchestra in Toronto for two weeks. Upon arrival, it is immediately apparent that Bugs is a misfit—musically and otherwise. The expected shenanigans of a young person’s novel are present in the narrative, but a focused reading on how music education is presented from page-to-page reveals an all too familiar disconnect between the music that is played inside and outside of schools. The following excerpt depicting an exchange between Bugs and the conductor, Mr. Darby, is representative of the book’s portrayal of rock and classical musics respectively as popular music versus school music; distinct domains in tension with one another:

“David Potter, my eyesight must be failing. Would you mind telling me where you see a drum roll in bar nine?”
           
“Oh, there isn’t one, sir,” said Bugs cheerfully. “I thought I’d just liven it up a bit.”
           
“This is a Strauss waltz,” said Mr. Darby icily, “not a rock number. It does not require livening up. In future, kindly play only what is on your music sheet—and nothing more.” (Korman, 1980, p.12)
 
In this case, there’s something to be said for the adage, “stereotypes exist for a reason.” Bugs’ band-class plight resonates with me; at the age of fifteen I was also the drummer in the percussion section who had a tendency to stray from the printed page, improvising snare drum patterns when I felt a different groove while the band teacher shot me accusatory what-on-earth-are-you-doing?-looks. I soon dropped out due to disinterest. My chief complaint about music class echoed Bugs’ critique of Strauss: “There are hardly any drums.”

To be clear, I quit school music, not music. Everyday after school I went home and played drums and guitar, teaching myself how to play these instruments, a practice consistent with the findings of Bennett (1980) who concluded: “rock music is learned to a much greater extent than it is ever taught by teachers” (p. 3). I didn’t take lessons and I didn’t have friends that played music, so most of what I know I learned by myself. I listened to a lot of recordings, and I also made a lot of recordings, both from which I learned a great deal. While being a high school music dropout effectively closed the door to any chance of me pursuing music studies at the post-secondary level, it didn’t inhibit my music education because I didn’t aspire to be a classical music performer—everything I wanted to do musically could be learned without enrolling in a music school. In the late 1990s when I began to peruse post-secondary options, Canadian university music schools subscribed heavily to the classical triumvirate (band, orchestra, choir) and the closest resembling music to what I played—jazz—seemed like a distant relative at best. To my disappointment, there was no major in rocking out to be found anywhere in Canada. Such an education would have to continue in a “third environment” (Hargreaves, Marshall, & North, 2003) while I pursued a different degree: in my cramped cell-like room in the student residence (ironically across the street from a penitentiary), dilapidated basements in the student-rented houses in close proximity to the university colloquially referred to as “the ghetto,” and of course, in numerous stale-beer-smelling bars where the oft-offered advice to concertgoers was, “they’ll sound better if you drink more.” I led a dual life of sorts, treating school as my day job, while I practiced and gigged with my band incessantly whenever possible. We had some small but notable successes such as a pair of video premieres on MuchMusic, a showcase at Canadian Music Week, gigs at venerated venues such as Lee’s Palace and the Horseshoe Tavern, and a funding award from FACTOR (Foundation to Assist Canadian Talent on Records), but we never earned enough income to quit our jobs (or in my case to justify dropping out of school).

I confess that when I applied for graduate studies in music education, I had ulterior motives: I just wanted to find a way to keep my rock band going. Knowing that graduation and disbanding typically go hand-in-hand, I decided that I needed to find a way to keep the dream alive for my band. Faced with the decision of either getting a “real job” or taking courses and “doing research” (“whatever that is,” I shrugged off at the time), I did some quick math and calculated that the latter option would better suit the interests of my rocking aspirations. By the time my masters’ thesis supervisor lent me her copy of How Popular Musicians Learn by Lucy Green (2001), I had already done so much writing, rehearsing, improvising, jamming, gigging, recording, and of course, learning with my band that the significance of her work was lost on me. Nearly everything she revealed about her research I had experienced firsthand and had erroneously assumed to be common knowledge. I found the field’s conception of “general music” to be misleadingly specific—far from what I had observed when people played music, generally speaking. I was as ignorant to the field of music education as it was to popular musicians like me; music education seemed alien, and much to my surprise, I was an alien species to it.

In this chapter I propose a plan for popular music education in Canada. To accomplish this I pose a number of questions: (1) What is the current state of Canadian music education? (2) What is the current state of popular music pedagogy (PMP)? (3) What is authentic PMP? (4) What is popular music? (5) How is popular music made? (6) What is PMP presently missing? I argue that at present PMP has a limited view of popular music practices. While researchers in the field of music education—most of whom are not popular musicians—have made significant and meaningful contributions to our understanding of how popular musicians learn and how these approaches might inform PMP, a failure to understand the fundamental role of recording in popular music since the mid-1960s has led to the formulation of PMP that remains rooted in rock practices prior to this period. What’s missing from most iterations of PMP are the music-making practices of the contemporary producer, which stem from Jamaican dub conventions, and are omnipresent in the making of almost all popular musics at present.
 
Realizing the Mosaic
My underwhelming experience of school-based music education is hardly unique and many music education scholars have been critical of the field for adhering to an educational model that caters to the interests of a few at the cost of disengaging and disenfranchising (too) many. In critique of the calcified curriculum pervasive in most higher education music institutions, Kratus (2015) questions: “Why is the musical training of 21st-century music educators nearly identical to that of 19th-century performers preparing to join orchestras and opera companies?” (p. 345). The very makeup of an incoming class of music education students, and by extension our future music teachers, is typically determined by conservatory-model performance auditions that prioritize the needs of large ensembles. The logic of such a system is not far off from the much more maligned practice of universities admitting students into academic programs based primarily on their athletic prowess. As a result, those “who have other desirable 21st-century music skills…often struggle to find a music education program that will admit them (Kaschub and Smith, 2014, p. 16), not to mention those who are not white (DeLorenzo, 2015) and/or disabled (Lubet, 2011). For those who don’t fit the 19th-century musical mould described by Kratus (2015), the barrier to a post-secondary music education is less like a glass ceiling and more like a bouncer at a bar: the criteria for entry are blatantly discriminatory. This practice extends to university teaching and research: “few popular musicians have felt inspired, qualified, or welcome (or all three) to bring their practices into the academic realm” (Parkinson, 2013, p. 160). This is evident in Canada where the popular musician on a music faculty (but not on a non-music faculty!) remains a rarity. Canada isn’t musically homogenous, but someone from another country could be forgiven for coming to this conclusion based on an analysis of most of our post-secondary music programs. Coast-to-coast, the curriculum of a Canadian music school is as predictable as a Tim Hortons’ menu; we’re more musically mired in the Western European tradition than Western Europe. Many of our music schools still champion pedagogies on the leading edge of tradition such as Orff, Kodaly, and Dalcroze, which are undeniably engaging and effective, but were designed to educate music learners in the Western European tradition. While my views on the state of Canadian music education could be construed as anti-traditional, I am not suggesting that we replace one culture’s music with another. Rather, what I am suggesting is that we strive to reflect the diversity of the country in which we educate. We pride ourselves on being the mosaic—let’s realize this musically.

A good music school reflects the reality of the global musical landscape, and a progressive one paints the future. At present we’re neither, mostly we just whitewash (Elpus, 2015, reported that more than 90% of music teacher candidates in the US are white and I suspect that Canada likely matches or exceeds this statistic). Can our palette be expanded with informal learning and non-formal teaching? Let’s look across the pond and see if the grass is greener on the other side.

Green-er Pastures?
Picture
Fifteen years past the first printing of How Popular Musicians Learn (2001), here we are, Canadian music educators contemplating approaches to 21st-century music education such as those outlined by Green (2001; 2008; 2014). Being late to the party has its advantages, mainly, the ice has been broken and many have already plunged into the conversation. Deep dialogues have ensued on the topic of informal pedagogy and non-formal teaching, including some insightful critiques by leading thinkers in our field, often rebutted gracefully by Green herself (See for example the special issues in Visions of Research in Music Education; Action, Criticism, and Theory for Music Education, and British Journal of Music Education).

In his analysis of 81 articles on popular music pedagogy (PMP) from 1978 to 2010, Mantie (2013) observed that whereas American writers tended to focus on issues of legitimacy regarding PMP, authors from the UK, Australia, and Scandinavia focused on best practices for PMP, implying that legitimacy was a non-issue (for readers wishing to delve into the issue of legitimacy of PMP, I suggest reading Bowman, 2004). Like Folkestad (2006) and Green (2001), I agree that popular music is automatically ushered into schools because students and teachers bring it with them; culture cannot be parsed out of a person. If PMP is deemed legit, the critical question becomes: “how should we practice PMP?”

As a starting point, focusing on learners as curriculum makers ensures that curricular content reflects their musical interests (e.g., Lebler, 2007; Green, 2008; Finney & Philpott, 2010; Karlsen, 2010; Williams, 2014; Wright, 2008). If there is a figurehead for this movement, it is without question Lucy Green, whom Mantie (2013) noted was referenced in over half of the literature he reviewed on PMP. James Brown sang that he “Paid the cost to be the boss” (1973), and Snoop Dog later rapped that he “Paid tha Cost to Be da Bo$$” (2002); criticism comes with the territory of being a recognized leader. As the boss of PMP, Green is in good company with Soul’s Godfather and hip-hop’s Doggfather. It is with a great deal of respect that I critique her work in the interest of contributing to the improvement of PMP, which she encourages (2011). Her major contributions to PMP (i.e., 2001; 2008; 2014) are commendable considering the worldwide seismic shift in popular music education they helped spur. In an effort to cultivate learner-centred environments for classrooms that could emulate the authentic practices of the popular musicians she researched (2001), Green (2008) formulated a pragmatic model for PMP, which stipulates that popular musicians:
  1. Choose their own music to learn;
  2. Learn by listening to and copying recordings;
  3. Learn alongside friends or by themselves;
  4. Assimilate skills and knowledge in haphazard, idiosyncratic, and holistic ways;
  5. Integrate listening, performing, improvising, and composing simultaneously throughout the learning process.
​​Green’s model bears resemblance to what Lee (1976) outlined twenty-five years earlier, suggesting the incorporation of the following rock-based practices into classroom music activities: learning by ear, listening to and imitating recordings, working in small groups, and improvising. This quarter-century connection is important because it begs the question: if popular music practices changed markedly between 1976 and 2001, why are these pedagogies so similar? What have we learned since the mid-1970s from popular music culture that is absent in Green’s PMP? Consider: hip-hop taught us that we can make new instruments from existing technologies, and that we can make new music from existing recordings; punk taught us that authenticity trumps virtuosity; electronic musicians of the 1980s taught us that programming is musicianship; by the end of the 1990s popular music had cycled through a broad spectrum of genres, from the caliginous calls of Cobain to the bubble-gum-bliss of Britney.

If we conceptualize that “popular music is not an ‘it’ but a ‘them’—a vast, multifarious, and fluid range of musical practices” (Bowman, 2004, p. 34), then we should be sceptical of a single serialized informal pedagogy (Jorgensen, 2012). As Allsup (2008) points out, the source of Green’s empirical data used to formulate her theory were “collected from a sample of fourteen all-white participants, twelve of whom were male, all of whom played what can be loosely described as white-ethnic rock” (p. 4). The learning processes outlined in How Popular Musicians Learn (2001) are about how a particular group of popular musicians—white rock musicians—learn. The danger to PMP lies in the interpretation of Green’s research as representative of all popular musicians. How Rock Musicians Learn would have made for a more accurate title and one that would have aged better. Green later explained that her rock-centric sample was a research delimitation: “I excluded rappers, DJs, and musicians who produce highly electronic, synthesized, and sampled musics, because the learning practices involved in such musics contain significant differences from those of guitar-based rock” (2004, p. 226), clearly demonstrating that she is aware that not all popular musicians learn in the same manner. And yet, more recently she stated: “informal popular-music learning practices are undertaken in one way or another by most popular musicians in nearly all sub styles, in ways that can be characterized by a number of general features” (2014, p. xxiii). These “general features” referred to in 2014 are the same as those outlined initially in 2001.

The core concepts of Green’s model of How Popular Musicians Learn (2001) have not been revised or amended in her more recent monographs (2008; 2014). This helps to explain why PMP programs following her principles like Musical Futures adhere predominantly to rock practices prevalent in the early 1960s, both in instrumentation (vocals, guitar, electric, bass, keyboard) and in practice (real-time “live” performance). As the owner of a couple dozen guitars who has played hundreds of live gigs, I encourage these learning experiences, but if we stop at rock, we’ll hit bottom by failing to see the bigger picture of popular music and its potential in/for music education. Second, the music education profession is still stubbornly preoccupied with equating “performance” with live synchronous music making. This mentality stems from the formal tradition and is a prime example of how music educators enmeshed in this ethos tend to jam the square peg that is popular music into a classical-shaped hole (e.g., having 30 children on stage strumming guitars to the latest chart-topping song). On one hand, it’s exciting for me that the music I have played my whole life could be part of a more holistic, and more democratic music education. I applaud these initiatives for diversifying approaches to music making in music education; it’s long overdue and sorely needed. On the other hand, it’s concerning for me that what gets passed off as popular music education is sometimes a faint shadow of what I perceive to be authentic popular music practice. Rather than simply tear down what has already been propped up to scaffold PMP, I hope that my twenty years of experiences as a popular musician can contribute a constructive perspective on how popular musicians learn, and thereby improve the foundation of this burgeoning area of inquiry. With this in mind, I turn to the construct of authenticity.
 
A New Authenticity​
PMP typically entails informal learning: “non-linear, cooperative learning, controlled by a social group rather than by an individual” (Feichas, 2010, p. 49), which flirts with inauthenticity when it occurs in formal settings such as classrooms. Finney and Philpott (2010) aver: “formal learning about informal learning is a contradiction that risks the moment of informal learning remaining ‘buried’ and can result in a short-lived as opposed to long-term impact on the habitus of developing music teachers” (p. 11). Seddon (2004) pushes the argument further:

It is not possible to insert alternative music styles into a set of classroom practices that has been developed to deal with classical music. Subcultures are more than just the style of music they use, they’re context-dependent. (p. 213)
 
Context is the crux of this PMP conundrum. How can educators identify and evaluate authentic practices if they’re not ensconced in the subculture from which the music emanates? Investigating hip-hop DJ pedagogy, Katz (2012) attended a Scratch DJ Academy, which offers a formalized curriculum on how to DJ in the hip-hop tradition. He remarked on how the Miami “classroom” was designed to resemble the dilapidated South Bronx projects of the 1970s, replete with fake brick wallpaper, oil drums, and graffiti—all to fain authenticity. Well aware that “most DJs learned by observing friends, relatives, or neighbours and developed their skills largely through trial and error” (p. 233), Katz questioned renowned turntablist QBert whether the Scratch Academy’s prescriptive pedagogy could foster authentic practices. QBert didn’t mince words in his response: “If…it’s fucking kicking ass, then you’re fucking keep it real” (p. 236).

The implication of QBert’s frank assertion is that how one goes about learning is not as important as being able to demonstrate what has been learned. Second, the participants of a musical culture act as gatekeepers; they are the arbiters of authentic practice. It is the respect of one’s musical peers that guides and drives learning, which tends to occur obliviously as an on-going by-process. But such a position needs to be taken with a kosher-sized grain of salt because we need to continually consider the context of the learner. Presumably all learners want to get better, but whether or not that can occur depends on a host of factors, requiring the educator to be “intimately acquainted” with the historical, social, economic, and cultural context of students’ lives (Dewey, 1938). Further, there is the more practical issue of accessing members of specific musical cultures for the purposes of validating authentic practice. How do you gauge your musical development if you live in a cultural vacuum (such as where I grew up in rural Ontario) and are attempting to participate in a musical culture that is worlds away? Do we default to the Internet, hoping that these musical cultures have a strong online presence and a vested interest in music education? This proposition seems a little farfetched.

The alternative is to formulate a new authenticity, one that meshes with the culture that has adopted a musical culture from elsewhere. Canada’s indigenous hip-hop scene provides an example of this practice. Jerilynn Webster aka JB the First Lady of the First Ladies Crew in East Vancouver explained to Warner (2015) how hip-hop culture shares similarities to indigenous culture with dancing, drumming, storytelling, and art all featuring as critical components. Webster related:

As a young person, an activist talking about women’s rights or about murdered and missing indigenous women, hip-hop has been the best venue to connect with not only my peers and young people, but also the greater public that may have barriers to listening to the stories of First Nations’ indigenous people. (Warner, 2015, n.p.)
 
Webster’s engagement with hip-hop music illustrates that musical cultures are not necessarily fixed phenomena with rigid rules to shepherd authenticity. Rather, they fit into the fold of their adopters in which new iterations of authenticity are spun out and woven back into the cultural fabric. This perspective is supported by Clive Campbell aka DJ Kool Herc, widely acknowledged as the progenitor of hip-hop music:

To me, hip-hop says, “Come as you are.” We are a family…It’s about you and me, connecting one to one. That’s why it has universal appeal. It has given young people a way to understand their world, whether they are from the suburbs or the city or wherever. (Chang, 2005, p. xi)
 
Music educators must take into consideration the context of the learning environments they inhabit to make sensitive and informed decisions on how to best facilitate authentic learning. As Smith (2015) suggests, “we should be asking our students and ourselves, ‘How can my musicality help you more fully to realize (in both senses of the word) yours?’” (p. 190). Ideally, teachers will connect their classrooms with representatives of the musical cultures that interest their students as there is no substitute for an insider perspective, but they should also recognize that within the very rooms they work new authenticities will arise. This is an exciting prospect for the field of music education because rather than mimic genres, we can make them. Instead of waiting for the next wave, we can be it. But before we start to make waves in PMP (literally and figuratively), let's ensure that we have a sound understanding of the mutable milieu of popular music.

"Popular Music": What Exactly Are We Talking About?
I used to work as a researcher at a music therapy center in New York City, and I distinctly recall an interaction I had with an elderly man on the topic of popular music while we were both waiting in the clinic’s reception area. I was carrying a rather large book under my arm called Recording the Beatles (Ryan & Kehew, 2006), which must have caught the man’s attention because almost immediately he asked me (in a stereotypically thick New Yorker accent): “Is that a book on the Beatles?” “Yes,” I replied. “Didn’t one of them die?” I assumed he was referring to John Lennon and told him that George Harrison had since passed, too. “Oh,” he said as he processed this update seemingly unfazed. “How come they nevah play populah music on the radio anymore?” I assumed that he was inferring that commercial radio tended to play other musical fare than rock in the same vein as the Beatles. I was about to explain that whatever he’s hearing on the radio in New York likely constitutes “popular music” to the ears of most listeners, but before I could vocalize this thought he quipped, “You know, populah music, like Sinatra.” The fact that two friendly strangers passing time in an office reception area can’t hear ear-to-ear on a fixed definition of popular music is indicative of the complexity of the phenomena.

Beethoven, Gilbert and Sullivan, Gershwin, Richard Rodgers, Sousa, Perez Prado, Irving Berlin, and Cole Porter were but a few of the composers included in an eclectic popular music compilation issued by Reader’s Digest in 1960. In the booklet paired with the 10-LP anthology, the editors commented:

We called the collection “Popular Music That Will Last Forever” because it is popular in the finest sense of the word. When a piece of music is still popular after millions of people have heard it umpteen times, it has stood the sternest test of all—the test of familiarity (1960, p. 2)
 
For the editors at Reader’s Digest, familiarity constituted popularity, yet consider that by 1960 the first wave of rock ‘n’ roll had already swept through the United States and Canada, and the music most popular amongst teenagers at that time was conspicuously absent from the compilation. More than half of a century later we now know that rock ‘n’ roll would bud and branch too many sub-genres and cross-genres to catalogue, many of which would colloquially be referred to as “popular” at one point in time or another. “Rock ‘n’ roll” soon became too limiting of a label to adequately describe the diversity of musics that stemmed from its first flowering, and what resulted was an exponentiation of rock-related genres as diverse as the people that engaged with it. The original rock recipe is said to be most parts rhythm and blues (music of African-Americans) with some added influences from country and western (music of poor whites) and “popular music” (as deemed by the white middle class) (Covach & Flory, 2015; Stuessy & Lipscomb, 2012; Friedlander, 2006).
Picture
That one of rock’s initial ingredients was “popular music” may seem confusing as it implies that popular music is made from itself. Such a premise is possible because popular music is in a constant state of flux, ever-evolving, defying static definitions. Ultimately, what constitutes “popular” is a matter of preference, more specifically, taste (Bourdieu, 1984): a complex social phenomenon that falls outside of the scope of this discussion, but is explained humorously by Wilson (2007) for those readers wanting to delve deeper. The who, where, when, why, and how of popular music varies, and therefore the categorization of popular music varies. Bowman (2004) likens popular music to art: “It does not and cannot mean any one thing, or even any single combination of things” (p. 37). Paralleling this proposition, popular musicians are as eclectic as the music they produce. Popular musicians cannot be divided into a dichotomy (informal/formal), nor contained within a continuum (informal-formal); such models are not nearly messy enough. A more accurate model to depict the myriad ways musical cultures and their associated learning approaches intersect and integrate would be the steaks of paint on the canvas of Jackson Pollock’s “Convergence”—we’re a colourful collective colliding from different directions. The first takeaway for the music educator is to grasp a fluid definition of popular music and acknowledge that this dynamic definition is dependent on the complexities of social context. Thankfully, this answer anchored to alteration has a rather elementary equation: continually converse with your students. Moving targets aren’t difficult to hit if you move with them. Second, sticking to a slippery definition of popular music is important for educators working in more formal learning environments such as schools, colleges, and universities that necessitate prescribed policies for classrooms. Advocacy is policy in its infancy, and with sufficient support it can transition into a formalized state (policy), that in the hands of administrative bodies is not easily amended. Look no further than at the major changes in a typical music school’s curriculum at the post-secondary level over the past few decades. Can’t find them? That’s because they don’t exist. Therefore, if we’re going to make a pivotal push for popular music’s inclusion in Canadian learning institutions and formalize the informal, then we need to avoid fixed definitions of popular music implicit in genre advocacy and be firm about a flexible demarcation of what falls within the bounds of “popular music.”

While identifying what learners perceive as popular is an important task for the music educator, it’s merely the first step along the path toward a pliable PMP platform. In the inaugural issue of Popular Music in 1981, Richard Middleton commenced his editorial by acknowledging that the “obvious subject” is answering the question, “what is popular music?” (p. 3). Admitting that such a feat is likely arbitrary, Middleton shifted his focus away from definition toward description, paraphrasing John Blacking: “over-concentration on musical categories obscures the more necessary attention to processes of music-making” (p. 6). Schloss (2014) contextualizes this perspective in the case of sample-based hip-hop production:

It is tempting, particularly in view of the conceptual similarities between hip-hop production and the composition of European art music, to see the compositional activity as secondary to the work that it produces. But to do so would be to overlook the most central aspect of the aesthetic system: the process. (p. 162)
 
To understand the process is to understand the music. A process-over-product perspective of PMP complements a learner-centred curriculum while honouring the music makers of a tradition by striving to understand the broader context in which it is made. In the case of popular music—an eclectic jumble of genres, sub-genres, and hybrid genres—recording-as-music-making is a process in which all musicians engage. Recording can be regarded as an artefact or as an action; the latter will lead us to PMP that better reflects the reality of popular music practice.
The Common Denominator: Recording As Popular Music Making

For nearly a century, formal music education has turned its back upon the learning practices of the musicians who produce most of the music that comes out of loudspeakers. But perhaps by constructively embracing those same technological developments which many people consider to have alienated music-making, and noticing how they are used as one of the main means of self-education for popular musicians, we can find one key to the re-invigoration of music-making in general. (Green, 2001, p. 186)
 
The quoted passage emphasizes the importance of using recordings as means of learning. Researchers in music education (e.g., Campbell, 1995; Jaffurs, 2004) and popular music (e.g., Bennett, 1980; Schwartz, 1993) report that recordings constitute the primary texts from which popular musicians learn. As McClary and Walser (1988/1990) elucidate: “What popular music has instead of the score is, of course, recorded performance—the thing itself, completely fleshed out with all its gestures and nuances intact” (p. 282). But to view recording as only something to learn from is to misconstrue how popular musicians learn because recording is a music-making process. Having an understanding of how this process works can help music educators to facilitate learning experiences that reflect this important aspect of PMP that by and large is not well represented in contemporary music education practices.
As a starting point, consider the typical recording processes of rock ‘n’ roll in the mid-1950s and early 1960s as described by Stokes (1976):

Recording was a relatively simple process in which a band lined up in front of microphones, each one controlled for volume from the control booth, and played their music. Generally it went right from the microphones to the final tape; only the most sophisticated of recordings allowed even some overdubbing. No matter which method was used, when the recording session was over, the record was finished. (p. 136)
 
By the mid-1960s the recording process had changed drastically with musical artists harnessing recording technology to move the conception of recording beyond that of an audio snapshot capturing a moment in time. Referencing the increasingly elaborate studio productions of the Beach Boys, Moorefield (2010) writes:

Already in 1966, then, the composer, arranger, and producer are melded into one person…Brian Wilson was at the controls himself, making on-the-spot decisions about notes, articulation, timbre, and so on. He was effectively composing at the mixing board and using the studio as a musical instrument. (p. 19)
 
Since the mid-1960s, “most of the music that comes out of loudspeakers” has not been made by a group of people playing together in the same room at the same time. Instead, like Brian Wilson, musicians have used the studio as a musical instrument, whether they work alone (Author, 2014; Butler, 2014; Schloss, 2014), or in teams (Hennion, 1983/1990; Seabrook, 2015; Warner, 2004). Music education needs pedagogy to reflect this reality.
​
To the credit of the field, music educators have written about using the studio as instrument, at least inadvertently, since the 1970s. Paynter and Aston (1970) advocated using tape recorders to “make music,” recognizing the technology’s potential to not only record but to edit, make loops (literally), shift pitches via speed changes, layer sounds, and play sounds backward (p. 134). Under the umbrella of “composition” several music education researchers investigated the music-making process with computers (e.g., Bamberger, 1977; Folkestad, Hargreaves, & Lindstrom, 1998; Hickey, 1997; Stauffer, 2001; Wilson & Wales, 1995), all of which resemble the practice of using the studio as instrument. More recent studies have followed suit in reporting on learning and music-making practices in which studio technology serves as the instrument, occurring in a broad range of formal and informal learning environments (Egolf, 2014; Finney, 2007; Gullberg & Brandstrom, 2004; Lebler, 2008; Lebler & Weston, 2015; King, 2008; Mellor, 2008; Tobias, 2013; Tobias, 2015). Despite the significance of these contributions to our understanding of the studio as instrument as it relates to music education, what’s promulgated as PMP tends to eschew these authentic practices of production. Circling back to Green’s quote at the beginning of this section, we need to interpret “technological developments” to mean the processes of recording as opposed to the products of recording, and focus on how popular music is made to support the learners with whom we engage. To that end, in the proceeding section I examine the role of production at present and its implications for PMP.

​Producing Producers
Picture
To me it’s still cool that we’re still in an era where people think that people have no talent if they make computer music. – Skrillex
 
The college students I teach in New Jersey unanimously agree that Drake is the most popular musician. They’re also colossal fans of the Weeknd, and although they all don’t like to admit it, Justin Bieber. How intriguing that my students, most of whom were born and raised in the United States, are obsessed with Canadian musicians. As Henderson (2008) observed, in the digital era of the Cancon period (note: since 1971 the Canadian government has mandated that a specified percentage of music content played on commercial radio be at least fifty percent Canadian-made with regard to music, artist, production, and lyrics), Canadian musicians no longer try to blend into other music markets, “they go as Canadian” (p. 313). Drake is a prime example. My students inform me that the guy I recognize as “Wheelchair Jimmy” from Degrassi: The Next Generation is actually Aubrey Graham from “the 6” (Toronto), and that although his dancing in “Hotline Bling” is ridiculous, they still love him anyway. They know whom he’s dating and whom he’s hating. They’re well aware that he may have a ghostwriter for his raps, but they don’t really care. Taken together, this social-media savvy celebrity is recognized by my American students as the epitome of popular music. Yet despite their awareness of the intricacies of all things Drake, when I ask my students about his music-making process, if they know how it’s made, or how they would go about making something similar, they are at a loss for words. While there is scholarship on the music-making processes entailed in rock (Zak, 2001), 1980s pop (Warner, 2003), contemporary pop (Seabrook, 2015), electronic dance music (Butler, 2014), and sample-based hip-hop (Schloss, 2014)—the majority of which is confined to the academic press—most people, let alone music educators, have no idea how popular music is made.
Picture
With this in mind, let’s examine how popular music is made using the example of Jack Ü aka Diplo and Skrillex, featuring Stratford, Ontario’s Justin Bieber in “Where Are Ü Now?” (2015). The New York Times interviewed these three musicians about the making of this song, revealing the laborious process needed to transmute what was originally a ballad featuring only vocals and piano accompaniment to a radio hit. Pareles (2015) details the work of Diplo and Skrillex:

They took the lone a cappella vocal track they had from Mr. Bieber, cut it to stutter certain words in the introduction, and pitched it higher and lower in various parts of the song, allowing Mr. Bieber to answer himself from below and harmonize above. They toyed with dance beats, keyboard chords and bass lines — thickening the song and then thinning it again. They concocted sounds that were determinedly different from standard dance-club fare; what seems like a snare drum, for instance, is actually a tweaked version of an Indian tabla, Skrillex said.

And they devised the “dolphin” — the song’s most instantly recognizable, most insinuating hook. It’s not an acoustic or electronic instrument: It’s a brief snippet of Mr. Bieber’s vocal line, a subliminal reinforcement of the melody. It’s pitched two octaves above the original, run through distortion and equalization effects and given a very short tail of reverb, creating a digital sound with a human core. (n.p.)

The case of “Where Are Ü Now?” (2015) makes it clear that in this techno-pop production, much like hip-hop, “the timbral properties of both voices and instruments are as fundamental to the composition as the pitches and rhythms they perform” (Adams, 2015, p. 123). The work of Warner (2003) on eighties electronic pop music reveals a similar practice in which musicians “treat frequency and time as continua rather than elements to be divided…as ‘pitch’ and ‘rhythm’” to exploit timbre (p. 19). Schloss (2014) is quick to dismiss any notion that tinkering with timbre is a minor detail in hip-hop production; to the contrary he asserts that idiosyncrasies express individuality, a cornerstone of hip-hop culture.

The implication of these varied musics sharing this similar practice is that the technological tools once associated with audio engineering and the associated skills needed to wield them are musical instruments and actions, respectively. In the age of the microprocessor, computing devices are our culture’s most readily available musical instruments, supporting a spectrum of computer-based musical practices (e.g., Brown & Dillon, 2012; Butler, 2014; Crow, 2006; Evens, 2005; Jaffurs & Younker, 2010; Odam, 2004; Väkevä, 2010). In these musical practices,
the acoustical gestures of bowing, fretting, strumming, blowing, fingering, are replaced by the technological gestures of downloading, cutting, pasting, duplicating, aligning, normalizing, filtering, etc. Hours and days in front of the keyboard and mouse are spent playing a piece. (Evens, 2005, p. 124-125).
While these musical processes are now carried out ubiquitously in popular music practice with computers, they germinated in Jamaica in the potentiometer-plying hands of King Tubby and his protégés, most notably Lee “Scratch” Perry. These architects of “dub” remixed “riddim” tracks consisting of drums, bass, guitar, organ, and horns, with variform vocal performances to produce distinct versions from the same stems. Chang (2005) describes this performance practice with the example of the eccentric style of “Scratch”:

Behind a cheap four-track mixing desk, which by the standards of the time was hopelessly out-dated, Perry whirled and bopped and twiddled the knobs, imbuing the recordings with wild crashes of echo, gravity-defying phasing, and frequency-shredding equalization. (p. 29)
 
The mixing console and effects processors were the musical instruments of Tubby and those under his tutelage (Williams, 2012). Their aesthetic of utilizing pre-recorded materials to realize new renditions was figuratively sampled and remixed by hip-hop DJs in the Bronx spinning break beats with repurposed record players (Williams, 2013). Seabrook (2015) surmises that since the mid-2000s “the standard method by which popular songs are written”—“track-and-hook”—are essentially based on Tubby’s dub approach (p. 200). While the tools of the trade have changed since Tubby’s time, the music-making processes he pioneered as the primogenitor producer still serve as the formidable trunk from which contemporary popular musics branch out. Musically, we have Tubby’s DNA; we are the kin of Kool Herc, the brood of Bambaataa [1], the family of Flash. In sum: “the DJ begat the producer, simple as that” (Katz, 2012, p. 121). Practitioners of PMP committed to student-selected curricula and authentic popular music practice would be wise to recognize that the learning legacy of the producer is rooted in dub, and its descendant, hip-hop. In this tradition producing is music making, therefore music education ought to produce producers.
Tractors in Tanzania: Live Amongst the Locals
Picture
In 1994 British journalist George Monbiot published an article in The Guardian deriding the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) for its failed attempts to emulate the wheat-producing prairies in the Tanzanian savannah. Commencing in the 1970s, in the process of ploughing tens of thousands of acres of land, tens of thousands of pastoral peoples were displaced, their livelihoods effectively destroyed, mirroring the decimation of their living environment. Although ninety percent of Tanzanians lived in rural areas and produced foods other than wheat (e.g., maize, sorghum, cassava, millet), they were bypassed in favour of facilitating the production of wheat-dependent foods, such as bread, for the minority urban populace (Freeman, 1982).
​
Beyond CIDA’s failing to feed the very people it intended to initially, Freeman (1982) details how it set in motion an unsustainable cycle of dependency on tractors and other Canadian-made farm machinery. In Africa where tractor parts and services were scarce, repairs and maintenance were difficult to come by. Freeman (1982) concludes: “despite the priority in CIDA's aid strategy given to the poorest people in least developed countries, the wheat farms bypass this target group both in methods of production and in the market for its products” (p. 501). How could a well-intentioned program to reduce food shortages go so wrong? In retrospect the answer seems so obvious—listen to the locals—yet these voices were ignored for decades and the problems persisted. Rather than lead to effective aid, good intentions and seemingly good ideas resulted in an ignominious failure.

In no way do I want to equate this Tanzanian plight with the failings of our field. Our problems are serious ones, but not a matter of survival in the literal sense. The reason I employ this analogy is to illustrate how even those of us with the noblest of intentions can be misguided simply because we can’t see the complete picture from our viewpoint. We can’t see our blind spots (that’s why they’re called blind spots), so we need to connect with communities of popular music makers to help us find our flaws and pick apart our pedagogies. And, we need to hire them:

If we believe that music educators must innovate to ensure music programs in schools and communities are relevant and meaningful in the 21st century, we must validate musical expertise, interests, and backgrounds that do not conform to the traditional models of our secondary and tertiary music programs. (Abril, 2014, p. 181)

Musical Pasts: A Way Back for Music Education

At present PMP in schools is not typically facilitated by popular musicians. More than being illogical, this is unjust. Instead, we treat teachers like architecture by trying to retrofit them with workshops in which we give them strategies to supplement their existing practices. Consider the hypothetical opposite. As a popular musician I write How Classical Musicians Learn, distilling the learning processes of a group of orchestral musicians, which informs my pedagogy: Musical Pasts. I then roll out my platform, “Classical Music Pedagogy” (CMP), which stipulates that classical musicians:
  1. know the canonical works
  2. read and write music notation
  3. do as they’re told by their instructors and take the conductor’s word as law
  4. practice incessantly
  5. play the piano

With my CMP in tow, I then proceed to offer “professional development” to an eclectic group of popular musicians in which we simulate the conservatory on a Saturday afternoon. When these popular musicians return to their respective music-making contexts, they round out their peers’ music education by autocratically delivering structured and sequenced lessons based on the tenets of CMP. If my CMP satire is hitting a nerve, I apologize, and I mean no offense. Surely such a scenario would do more than ruffle the feathers of the academy; every formal music institution would lambast such a proposition. Critics would be quick to point out the omissions and sweeping generalizations. Music degree-holders would fume that amateurs were taking jobs away from them. And yet, the opposite is lauded as progressive in our profession. Understand that popular music cannot be compartmentalized; it is a continuing commitment. Listening to the locals is wise and it’s a start. But, to join them, live amongst them, fellowship with them, thrive with them, become them—that’s the artesian well of authentic PMP. That’s the source that teaches us about the process of production and the value of the production process to music education.
​
The current iteration of PMP is predominantly an English educational interpretation of an African-American musical tradition, reminiscent of a previous “British Invasion.” Although rock has its roots in the United States, it lost its edge by the early 1960s and it would take English bands like the Beatles doing their best Little Richard impressions to reinvigorate American rock and unseat the tame teen acts such as Canadian heartthrob Paul Anka. How did American musicians respond? Bob Dylan plugged in, Jimi Hendrix set his guitar on fire, and James Brown formulated funk. Retrospectively, the late 1960s era is so revered that it’s dubbed the golden age of rock. What will be the pedagogical parallel in Canada’s response to PMP? I’m optimistic that if we: (1) maintain a fluid definition of popular music; (2) continually interrogate and irritate PMP in the spirit bettering it; (3) strive for authenticity; (4) privilege process; and (5) produce producers, we’ll succeed in supporting a sustainable model of PMP. Then, we’ll get closer to realizing the musical mosaic that we’re meant to be.

[1] Since the original writing of this piece, Bambaataa has been accused of sexual abuse. More here
Acknowledgements
I’d like to thank my colleague at Montclair State, Ethan Hein, who influenced my thinking on PMP through our conversations on our experiences teaching in the academy.
​
References

 
Abril, C.A. (2014). Invoking an innovative spirit in music teacher education. In M. Kaschub & J. Smith (Eds.), Promising practices in 21st century music teacher education (pp. 175–188). New York: Oxford University Press.
 
Adams, K. (2015). The problems of hip-hop analysis. In J. Williams (Ed.), The Cambridge companion to hip-hop (pp. 118–134). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
 
Allsup, R. E. (2008). Creating an educational framework for popular music in public schools: Anticipating the second-wave. Visions of Research in Music Education, 12. Retrieved from: http://www-usr.rider.edu/~vrme/v12n1/vision/1%20AERA%20-%20Allsup.pdf
 
Bamberger, J. (1977). In search of a tune. In D. Perkins & B. Leondar (Eds.), The Arts and cognition (pp. 284–319). Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press.
 
Bennett, H. S. (1980). On Becoming a Rock Musician. Amherst, MA: The University of Massachusetts Press.
 
Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A social critique of the judgment of taste. (R. Nice, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Bowman, W. (2004). Pop: goes...? Taking popular music seriously. In C. Rodriguez (Ed.), Bridging the gap: Popular music and music education (pp. 29–50). Reston, VA: MENC, the National Association for Music Education.

Brown, A. R. & Dillon, S. C.  (2012). Collaborative digital media performance with generative music systems. In G. McPherson & G. Welch (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of music education, volume 2 (pp. 549–566). New York: Oxford University Press.
 
Butler, M.J. (2014). Playing with something that runs: technology, improvisation and composition in DJ and laptop performance. New York: Oxford University Press.

Campbell, P. S. (1995). Of garage bands and song-getting: The musical development of young rock musicians. Research Studies in Music Education, 4(1), 12–20.

Chang, J. (2005). Can’t stop won’t stop: A history of the hip-hop generation. New York: Picador.
 
Covach, J. & Flory, A. (2015). What’s that sound? An introduction to rock and its history (4th ed). New York: Norton.
 
Crow, B. (2006). Musical creativity and the new technology. Music Education Research, 8(1), 121–130.
 
DeLorenzo, L. (2016). Is there a colour line in music education? In L. DeLorenzo (Ed.), Giving Voice to Democracy in Music Education: Diversity and Social Justice (pp. 176–194). New York: Routledge.
 
Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education. New York: Macmillan.
 
Egolf, E. J. (2014). Learning processes of electronic dance music club DJs (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from ProQuest Dissertations Publishing. (3613475)
 
Elpus, K. (2015). Music teacher licensure candidates in the United States: A demographic profile and analysis of licensure examination scores. Journal of Research in Music Education, 63(3), 314–335.

Evens, A. (2005). Sound ideas: Music, machines, and experience. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Feichas, H. (2010). Bridging the gap: Informal learning practices as a pedagogy of practice. British Journal of Music Education, 27(1), 47–58.  
 
Finney, J. (2007). Music education as identity project in a world of electronic desires. In J. Finney & P. Burnard (Eds.), Music education with digital technology (pp. 9–20). London: Continuum.
 
Finney, J., & Philpott, C. (2010). Informal learning and meta-pedagogy in initial teacher education in England. British Journal of Music Education, 27(1), 7–19.
 
Folkestad, G. (2006). Formal and informal learning situations or practices vs. formal and informal ways of learning. British Journal of Music Education, 23(2), 135–145.
 
Folkestad, G., Lindstrom, B., & Hargreaves, D. (1998). Compositional strategies in computer-based music-making. British Journal of Music Education, 15(1), 83–97.
 
Freeman, L. (1982). CIDA, wheat, and rural development in Tanzania. Canadian Journal of African Studies, 16(3), 479–504.
 
Friedlander, P. (2006). Rock and roll: A social history. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
 
Green, L. (2001). How popular musicians learn: A way ahead for music education. Burlington, VT: Ashgate.
 
Green, L. (2004). What Can Music Educators Learn from Popular Musicians? In C. Rodriguez (Ed.), Bridging the gap: Popular music and music education (pp. 225–240). Reston, VA: MENC, the National Association for Music Education.
 
Green, L. (2008). Music, informal learning, and the school: A new classroom pedagogy. Burlington, VT: Ashgate.
 
Green, L. (2014). Hear, listen, play! How to free your students’ aural, improvisation, and performance skills. New York: Oxford.
 
Gullberg, A., & Brandstrom, S. (2004). Formal and non-formal music learning amongst rock musicians. In J. Davidson (Ed.), The music practitioner: Research for the music performer, teacher, and listener (pp. 161–174). Aldershot, UK: Ashgate.

Hargreaves, D. J., Marshall, N., & North, A. C. (2003). Music education in the 21st century: A psychological perspective. British Journal of Music Education, 20(2), 147–163.
 
Henderson, S. (2008). Canadian content regulations and the formation of a national scene. Popular Music, 27(2), 307–315
 
Hennion, A. (1990). The production of success: An antimusicology of the pop song. In S. Frith & A. Goodwin (Eds.), On record: Rock, pop, and the written word (pp. 185–206). New York: Pantheon Books. (Original work published 1983)
 
Hickey, M. (1997). The computer as a tool in creative music making. Research Studies in Music Education, 8(1), 58–70.
 
Jaffurs, S. E. (2004). The impact of informal music learning practices in the classroom, or how I learned how to teach from a garage band. International Journal of Music Education, 22(3), 189–200.
 
Jaffurs, S. E. & Younker, B. A. (2010). Music in cyberspace: Exploring new models in music education. In A. Clements (Ed.), Alternative approaches to music education: Case studies from the field (pp. 111-117). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield
 
Jorgensen, E. (2012). On informalities in music education. In W. Bowman & A. L. Frega (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of philosophy in music education (pp. 453–471). New York: Oxford University Press.

Karlsen, S. (2010). BoomTown music education and the need for authenticity – informal learning put into practice in Swedish post-compulsory music education. British Journal of Music Education, 27(1), 35–46.

Kaschub, M. & Smith, J. (2014). Music teacher education in transition. In M. Kaschub & J. Smith (Eds.), Promising practices in 21st century music teacher education (pp. 3–23). New York: Oxford University Press.
 
Katz, M. (2012). Groove music: The art and culture of the hip-hop DJ. New York: Oxford University Press.

King, A. (2008). Collaborative learning in the music studio. Music Education Research, 10(3), 423–438.

Korman, G. (1980). Who is Bugs Potter? New York: Scholastic.
 
Kratus, J. (2015). In C. Randles (Ed.), Music Education: Navigating the future (pp. 340–346). New York: Routledge.
 
Lebler, D (2007). Student-as-master? Reflections on a learning innovation in popular music pedagogy. International Journal of Music Education, 25(3), 205–221.

Lebler, D. (2008). Popular music pedagogy: Peer learning in practice. Music Education Research, 10(2), 193–213.

Lebler, D. & Weston, D. (2015). Staying in sync: Keeping popular music pedagogy relevant to an evolving music industry. IASPM@Journal, 5(1). Retrieved from: http://www.iaspmjournal.net/index.php/IASPM_Journal/article/view/712
 
Lee, E. (1976). Pop and the teacher: some uses and problems. In G. Vulliamy & E. Lee (Eds.), Pop music in school (158–174). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press
 
Lubet, A. (2011). Music, disability, society. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
 
Mantie, R. (2013). A comparison of “popular music pedagogy” discourses. Journal of Research in Music Education, 61(3), 334–352.
 
McClary, S. & Walser, R. Start Making Sense! Musicology Wrestles with Rock (1990) In S. Frith & A. Goodwin (Eds.), On record: Rock, pop, and the written word (pp. 277–292). New York: Pantheon Books. (Original work published 1988)

Mellor, L. (2008). Creativity, originality, identity: Investigating computer-based composition in the secondary school. Music Education Research, 10(4), 451–472.
Middleton, R. (1981). Folk or popular? Distinctions, influences, continuities. Popular Music, 1(1), 3–7.
 
Monbiot, G. (1994, November 23). The scattering of the dead. The Guardian. Retrieved from: http://www.monbiot.com/1994/11/23/the-scattering-of-the-dead/

Moorefield, V. (2010). The producer as composer: Shaping the sounds of popular music (Rev. ed). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
 
Odam, G. (2004). Music education in the aquarian age: A transatlantic perspective (or “how do you make horses thirsty?”). In C. Rodriguez (Ed.), Bridging the gap: Popular music and music education (pp. 127–139). Reston, VA: MENC, the National Association for Music Education.
 
Pareles, J. (2015, August 25). The inside history of ‘Where Are Ü Now?’ The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/26/arts/music/justin-bieber-goes-electronic-with-skrillex-and-diplo-help.html
Parkinson, T. (2013). Canon (re)formation in popular music pedagogy. In M. Stakelum (Ed.), Developing the musician: Contemporary perspectives on teaching and learning (pp. 155–170). Farnham, UK: Ashgate.
 
Paynter, J. & Aston, P. (1970). Sound and Silence: Classroom projects in creative music. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Ryan, K., & Kehew, B. (2006). Recording the Beatles: The studio equipment and techniques used to create their classic albums. Houston, TX: Curvebender.
 
Schloss, J. G. (2014). Making beats: the art of sample-based hip-hop (Rev. ed). Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.
 
Schwartz, J. (1993). Writing Jimi: Rock guitar pedagogy as postmodern folkloric practice. Popular Music, 12(3), 281–288.
 
Seabrook, J. (2015). The song machine: Inside the hit factory. New York: Norton.
 
Seddon, F. (2004). Inclusive music curricula for the 21st century. In L. Bartel (Ed.), Questioning the music education paradigm (pp. 221-227). Toronto: Canadian Music Educators’ Association. 
 
Smith, G. D. (2015). Seeking “success” in popular music. In C. Randles (Ed.), Music Education: Navigating the future (pp. 183–200). New York: Routledge.
 
Stauffer, S. (2001). Composing with computers: Meg makes music. Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, 150, 1–20.
Stokes, G. (1976). Star-making machinery: The odyssey of an album. Indianapolis, IN & New York: Bobbs-Merrill.
 
Stuessy, J. & Lipscomb, S. (2013). Rock and roll: Its history and stylistic development (7th ed). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
 
Tobias, E. (2013). Composing, songwriting, and producing: Informal popular music pedagogy. Research Studies in Music Education, 35(2), 213–237.
 
Tobias, E. (2015). Crossfading music education: Connections between secondary students’ in- and out-of-school music experience. International Journal of Music Education, 33(1), 18–35.

Väkevä, L. (2010). Garage band or GarageBand®? remixing musical futures. British Journal of Music Education, 27(1), 59–70.
 
Warner, A. (2015, August 17). Inside Canada’s indigenous hip-hop scene with the First Ladies Crew. Pitchfork. Retrieved from: http://pitchfork.com/thepitch/858-inside-canadas-indigenous-hip-hop-scene-with-the-first-ladies-crew/

Warner, T. (2003). Pop music—technology and creativity: Trevor Horn and the digital revolution. Ashgate: Aldershot, UK.
 
Williams, D. A. (2014). Considering both curriculum and pedagogy. In M. Kaschub & J. Smith (Eds.), Promising practices in 21st century music teacher education (pp. 25–39). New York: Oxford University Press.
 
Williams, J. A. (2013). Rhymin’ and stealin’: Musical borrowing in hip-hop. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
 
Williams, S. (2012). Tubby’s dub style: The live art of record production. In S. Firth & S. Zagorski-Thomas (Eds.), The Art of Record Production: An Introductory Reader for a New Academic Field (pp. 235–246). Farnham, UK: Ashgate.
Wilson, C. (2007). Let’s talk about love: A journey to the end of taste. New York: Continuum.
 
Wilson, S., & Wales, R. (1995). An exploration of children’s musical compositions. Journal of Research in Music Education, 43(2), 94–111.
 
Wright, R. (2008). Kicking the habitus: power, culture and pedagogy in the secondary school music curriculum. Music Education Research, 10(3), 389–402.
 
Zak, A. (2001). The poetics of rock: Cutting tracks, making records. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. 
 
Suggested Readings:
  • The Song Machine by John Seabrook (2015)
  • The Poetics of Rock by Albin Zak (2001)
  • “Tubby’s Dubstyle: The Live Art of Record Production” by Sean Williams (2012)
  • Making Beats by Joseph Schloss (2014)
  • On Becoming a Rock Musician by H. Stith Bennett (1980)
 
Websites:
  • www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/08/25/arts/music/justin-bieber-diplo-skrillex-make-a-hit-song.html
  • www.songexploder.net
  • www.ethanhein.com
1 Comment

the Nardwuar Assignment

7/31/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
This is an assignment from my popular music history course, "Punk to Present: 1977-" 

Nardwuar Vs...

Nardwuar has been a music journalist for over 30 years. This Canadian icon has distinguished himself from the field with his unique style and impressive knowledge of his subjects. In more recent years his career has had a rebirth of sorts with many notable hip-hop artists eager to get the Nardwuar treatment. One of my favourite episodes is Nardwuar Vs. N.E.R.D. from 2008 because you can witness Pharrell's bewildered appreciation for the human serviette: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RKbSi87J5Q

For this assignment, you will watch a "Nardwuar Vs..." episode. It's important that you watch an interview with a musician (not a comedian, politician, etc.). These are titled as "Nardwuar Vs..." followed by the name of the musician(s). He interviews lots and lots of people, so there should be no issue finding someone you're interested in with a little searching on his YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/user/NardwuarServiette/featured

If you're having issues finding something that interests you, let me know. Episodes are rarely over 20 minutes, and typically about 12 minutes. Some episodes are too short to use for the purposes of this assignment simply based on a lack of content to analyze. 

Step 1. Watch an episode.

Step 2. Do the following:

a. Indicate which episode you watched, and the date it was originally posted. 

b. Content (900 words): Identify 3 themes from the interview and provide evidence for each theme. You should plan to write approximately 300 words per theme (900 words total). Examples of themes could include a wide variety of topics such as love/romance, childhood, musical likes/dislikes, food, and so on. For example, if you identify love/romance as a clear theme, your evidence might be that the interviewer asked 2 questions on this topic, and then give examples of the questions asked and the responses given by the musician(s). 

c. Analysis (300 words): Explain what you think this interview says about contemporary popular music culture. What do the questions and answers say about us as a musical culture? Based on the interview you watched, what do we as an interview-watching society want to hear/learn about from popular musicians?

Alternative:
​

Not a Nardwuar fan? That's ok, there a lot of great music interviewers out there, especially in the world of podcasts. Contact me for approval of your suggested alternative interview source. 
0 Comments

Lyric-First Songwriting with Hookpad and Soundtrap

4/21/2020

6 Comments

 
Part 1 (Hookpad)
In our group songwriting project, we used a beat-first strategy. In our individual songwriting project, we'll be using a be using a lyric-first approach. Although we all have (or will develop) our preferred strategies for songwriting, it's important to explore multiple strategies so that you have the experience to support students and help them develop their own songwriting approaches.

Hookpad
We'll be using a web-based app called hookpad: https://hookpad.hooktheory.com/

*You need to create a free account to save your work! This is very important as we don't want you to lose anything.

Due to its simplicity, this app may seem underwhelming compared to a DAW such as Soundtrap, but it's quite good for the purpose of figuring out melodies and chords to accompany lyrics. 

Although the app is fairly intuitive, it *might* help to watch their beginner tutorials, especially Part 1.

Part 1: User Interface: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyWT-2yfJ6Y
Part 2: Melodies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kkaMBAESv8
Part 3: Chords: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReY3PiVLXYg

If you are new to songwriting and/or music theory, a lyric-first approach might be best, and these tutorials are very helpful if you choose this route:

Going from Lyrics to Music - Part 1: Rhythm: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTp29-pUj7k
Going from Lyrics to Music - Part 1: Chords and Melody: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNJktuEhJ68

Their user guide may also come in handy: https://www.hooktheory.com/support/hookpad

This is all you really need for the purposes of this project, but if you want to go deeper, hookpad definitely affords it, and has some more advanced and longer tutorials:

Songwriting Series 1.1 (Harmony): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3inuuq67x4
Songwriting Series 1.2 (Melody): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esr1JVqnxa0
Songwriting Series 1.3 (Arranging): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7BlfSrGYz8
Songwriting Series 1.4 (Working in Logic): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SNh4ZjIoiw

Take some time to play around with the app and get comfortable with it. Drag and drop, click, see what happens. Use your ears to determine what sounds good. 

Task
Because you are a super producer, you've been hired to write for an emerging 14-year-old Okotoks-based pop star named Gary Epic. Gary Epic's handlers (his parents) have laid out the following criteria:
​
1. We want to hear a demo of a catchy chorus. If we like your chorus, we'll hire you to write the rest of the song.
2. We envision this being a powerful ballad that everyone can sing along to. Everyone likes Adele, and we feel that everyone should like Gary, too. He just needs his big break, and we're hoping you're his ticket to stardom. 
3. We'll leave it to you to figure out the music stuff, but Gary demands the following lyrics be included: "Let's be together and look at our phones." Maybe that's all the chorus needs. Maybe it needs more. We'll let you decide.

Tips
Well, Gary's parents have laid out their criteria, but they're short on detail. Here are some suggestions:

1. If you haven't already, watch the tutorials "Going from Lyrics to Music"
2. In hookpad, input the lyrics. 
3. There are no hard rules here, but the tutorials recommend creating a chord progression first, and then inputting the melody. It can be a chicken-egg conundrum, but whichever way you go, keep in mind that Gary's handlers are after a memorable melody first and foremost. 
4. It might be a good idea to listen to some Adele to get a sense of the style Gary's handlers are after. Beyond lyrics, melody, and harmony, consider other elements such as tempo (bpm) and rhythm.

Hookpad has some pretty cheesy-sounding style presets (check out 'Bossa Nova'), but you can spend some time tweaking the 'Band' settings to produce a passable demo. Unfortunately, the free version we're using won't allow you to save band settings (it will default to piano only), but it is fun to experiment with. The good news is that for an Adele-eque ballad, piano plus melody will suffice.

Here's SNL's take on how this Adele song cuts across differences: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2zyjbH9zzA

What to Submit
When you think you've generated a certified platinum hit and it's ready to share...
1. Save it to your free account.
2. go to File-->View Shareable URL
3. copy/paste the URL and submit
Part 2 (Soundtrap)
​
A message from Gary Epic's handlers:

We just love the chorus you've created for Gary! It's everything we hoped for. You really are Alberta's super producer as advertised. Thank you. But, there's an issue that needs to be addressed. Gary is no longer going by Gary anymore. He's changed his name to GRrrr.YE. While his name is still pronounced similarly, GRrrr.YE is adamant that he is now a hip-hop artist and would like to take his music in a new direction. GRrrr.YE is particularly enthralled with a Toronto rapper called Drake, maybe you've heard of him? We're wondering if you might be able to keep the chorus you've created but it make it like a Drake song. You know, with the beats and stuff. Please send us a demo asap.
P.S. Our retirement plan hinges on your success. 

What's a producer to do?
Well, Gary's parents (or should I say GRrrr.YE's parents?), are once again short on details, so I'll try to create a more concrete path to completion for this project. 

First, it would help to listen to some Drake.

Note: This review of 'Quarantine-era rap' including Drake's recent release, 'Toosie Slide' is not very glowing (language warning): https://www.stereogum.com/2079575/the-depressing-inertia-of-quarantine-era-rap/franchises/status-aint-hood/

I think there's a good lesson in here for music educators--maybe we agree with this writer, maybe we don't. Either way, it's a good reminder that our musical tastes are secondary in the classroom. We know that it's highly likely that our students are listening to this song that debuted at #1 on Billboard, so it would be wise to be familiar with it. 
Second, this is a very doable project for everyone in the class. If Pete Davidson (SNL) can make a Drake song, I'm confident you can, too: https://www.globaltv.com/shows/saturday-night-live/video/pete-davidson-drake-music-video/bd8918a8-7cd5-11ea-8224-0242ac110005/

I've decided to make two different pathways for our class:
Group 1: for music students (majors, minors, and those who feel confident they don't need my help)
Group 2: for non-music students who would like a technical assist from me

The Task
This is a classic genre-switching task. Time and again this is done in popular music. For example, Gloria Gaynor's disco hit "I Will Survive" (1978) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYkACVDFmeg , which has taken on a new meaning in the current context, got a makeover in the mid-90s from Cake: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KJjVMqNIgA

Same song, but different style.

Instructions for Group 1 (Group 2 is similar but different, and directions follow this section).
To switch your Adele-inspired chorus to a Drake-style hook, we'll be using Soundtrap.
​
1. Start by ensuring that your tempo (bpm) in Soundtrap is the same as your Part 1 (hookpad) project.
2. Using your Part 1 (hookpad) as a guide, play in the chords. After you've done this, spend some time trying to get the right sound (instrumentation and timbres) for the genre
Note: We're actually following Drake's main producer's approach at this point, which is to record the harmonic content to a click and then add the beat later (see here for a deep dive with Noah '40' Shebib if you wish: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESUHhXgIaos)
3. Create/record the beat. You might want to consider changing the tempo at this point (slowing down/speeding up). If Soundtrap's beatmaking tools don't do it for you, try out Groove Pizza (https://apps.musedlab.org/groovepizza/?). It's free and easy to use. You can download MIDI or audio of your beat and then import it into your Soundtrap session (They also have an 'Import to Soundtrap' function, but it's currently broken).
4. Using your Part 1 (hookpad) as a guide, record yourself singing the melody. You don't need a mic. Soundtrap works on phones, so you can sing into your phone if you don't have a computer (or if your computer doesn't have a built-in mic). 
i. Try using Autotune: https://support.soundtrap.com/hc/en-us/articles/208270805-How-do-I-add-Auto-Tune-to-my-vocals-
ii. Try using FX to further manipulate your vocal sound

Note: if you find that the melody is not in your singing range, you can change the key of your chords and melody: https://support.soundtrap.com/hc/en-us/articles/210294665-How-to-change-the-pitch-of-a-region

Note for the self-conscious: This is a music education course, and singing--not matter how good/bad you think you are it--is a basic skill and tool that you need to develop as a music educator. This isn't the 'the Voice'--there are no winners or losers. I only care that you give it your best. 

5. When you're finished, export the project as an .mp3

Instructions for Group 2 
1. Email me to request a MIDI file of your Part 1 (hookpad) project.
2. Import the MIDI file into a new Soundtrap session. 
Follow Steps 3-5 for Group 1 (above)
6 Comments

The Hit Factory Classroom: Making Music Like Max Martin

7/18/2018

0 Comments

 
Here are our slides for 'The Hit Factory Classroom: Making Music Like Max Martin" workshop presented at ISME 2018 in Baku. This is a constructionist workshop in which we learn the project by doing it. Some of the slides may need some contextualization that I give in the workshop to be understood, so if you're looking at this remotely and have questions, please feel free to ask. You'll notice I'm not promoting one particular DAW in the slides, today I'll be using Bandlab. 
0 Comments

SSHRC IDG Success: An Educated Guess

12/13/2017

1 Comment

 
I received a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for about $72k. I was asked to give a brief presentation on why I thought I was successful. Here are my slides:
1 Comment

The Pedagogy of Push: Assessing the Affordances of Ableton's "Instrument"

11/3/2017

1 Comment

 
Picture
Bell, A.P. (2018). The Pedagogy of Push: Assessing the Affordances of Ableton's "Instrument." In J. Ismaiel-Wendt & A. Fabian (Eds.), Musikformulare und Presets. Musikkulturalisierung und Technik/Technologie (pp. 166-177). Hildesheim, DE: Olms Weidmann.
​​
Available: http://www.olms.de/search/Detail.aspx?pr=2009235

Introduction: The Purpose of Push                 
“We consider Push a musical instrument,” remarked Dennis DeSanits, Head of Documentation for Ableton, in the recent webinar, “Introduction to Ableton Live and Push for Educators.” Throughout the webinar DeSantis repeatedly stressed that Push provides a “hands-on” experience that is markedly different from playing Live on a computer: “it’s designed to let people play melodies and harmonies, play and program drum parts without having to think about Live at all.”[1] This message—urging Ableton users to shift their gazes away from their computer screens in favor of focusing on the music-making experiences that the Push controller affords—was reiterated at the “Ableton University Tour” session I attended in New York City facilitated by Ben Casey, and again echoed in an interview I conducted with Jesse Terry, the creator of Push:

I think we always intended Push to be something you can focus on without looking at your computer, and that’s something we tried to maintain. There is a point where you have to go to your computer to take the next steps, but we wanted it to be a creation tool that you can forget about your email for a little bit, and you can turn your monitor away, and really just get into the moment of tangibly making music.

The apparent agenda of Ableton is to push its users to play Push by weaning as much attention and dependence as possible on the computer running Live. Given that Live has existed for fifteen years and that during this period of time its users have developed various approaches to playing it, Push is more compatible with some workflows than others. The aim of this article is to provide a preliminary analysis of the affordances and constraints of Push, with a particular emphasis on the perspective of the instrument’s inventor, Jesse Terry.

First, I outline a conceptual framework I initially created to analyze the affordances of GarageBand,[2] which I have adapted for the purposes of analyzing Push. My analysis commences by examining the presumptions regarding Push as a “technology” and/or as a musical instrument, and proceeds to explain how Push is best conceived of as a modular instrument akin to a drum set. Ableton’s agenda with regard to pedagogy favors Live PA production approaches, and this serves to position Push alongside other traditional music instruments that are categorized as such due to their shared trait of prizing real-time sound creation and manipulation. The ramifications of Ableton’s Push pedagogy are that novice users encounter a particular set of privileges and provisions, which directs their music making in certain ways. While novice Push users are less likely recognize its shortcomings, more experienced Push users’ experiences and expectations bring to light its protections and preventions.  
 
The Five “Ps”: A Conceptual Framework
The term “affordances” was coined by J.J. Gibson,[3] which refers to the actions made possible in the relationship between agents (typically people) and objects. A key distinction between Gibson’s conception of an affordance and Don Norman’s framing of “perceived affordances,”[4] is the role of agent perception. In Gibson’s worldview, affordances exist regardless of whether or not the agent recognizes them, whereas Norman stresses the need for agents to recognize what actions are possible for affordances to be meaningful in everyday life.

Regardless of which theoretical stance one takes on this issue, the term “affordance” has come to be utilized more generally in discussions regarding design to refer to what can be done with an object; a “constraint” is typically employed to describe a limitation of what can be done with an object. While these terms are helpful in conceptualizing the relationship between an agent and an object, they can be misused to limit analyses to a binary of either/or conclusions. An analysis of a design ought to extend beyond what is simply possible and impossible, and consider the degree of difficulty imposed on an agent’s desired action with the object. Norman explains that a “convention” is a type of constraint that evolves and requires a community of practice,[5] thereby foregrounding the context in which the agent and object exist, and implying that some actions are more easily afforded than others. The key concept stemming from this idea is that of a continuum—between impossible and possible actions—with some actions being more feasible than others for the agent to perform.
           
Applying this mode of thinking to the design of musical software and hardware, making decisions about what actions ought to be more easily afforded than others proves both pivotal and problematic. In order for the design of a complex system to be functional for a large user base, difficult decisions, often entailing design compromises, need to be made. Making all of the affordances of a system equally transparent is unlikely to occur unless it is very simple, or, the user base of the system is comprised entirely of experts. As a result, programmers and designers have to make difficult decisions on behalf of the user base in order for the system to be useful.[6] Graham Pullin suggests, “sometimes it is better to deny the user a feature that could have been useful, in favor of a better overall experience.”[7] Oftentimes, the overall experience is contingent on whether or not the design of the system is compatible with users’ preexisting ways of conceptualizing and making music. Therefore, design decisions have to be respectful of existing conventions by either adhering to them with the intent of continuing the established tradition, or critically considering the ramifications (political, social, economic, cultural, etc.) of upending the modus operandi. The more diverse the user base—with regard to ways of making music—the greater the challenge for the designer(s) to accommodate and appease everyone. Andrew Brown reasons, “When we choose a piece of music software, or other technology, we are essentially deciding, in part, whether or not our priorities align with those of the designer.”[8] It is this last point—the priorities of the designer—that my analysis of Push centers on. The framework I use for this purpose considers five different factors to illuminate the reality that some musical actions with Push are more easily afforded than others.

Presumptions
The specific conditions that must be met in order for a musical instrument to be played.

Privileges
Some actions are privileged over others by making them easier to do. Other actions are possible, but the design of the instrument encourages the user to carry out certain actions. Buttons and knobs with specific functions best exemplify this concept with Push. While there are many possibilities with the instrument, privileged actions follow the path of least resistance.

Provisions
When the instrument’s design steers the user towards an action it is privileging, but there are other actions possible that are not as immediately intuitive to the inexperienced user that are provided. These potential actions lie waiting to be discovered with an exploratory tap or twist, but are not explicitly endorsed with a function-specific button as is the case with a privilege. Push has multi-purpose buttons and knobs whose functions change depending on what mode or menu is used. The functions associated with default menus are the most accessible, they are privileged, while the less immediately accessible functions that require scrolling through menus are provided.

Protections
Protections are the capabilities of an instrument that are seemingly hidden from the user. There are no cues embedded in the instrument interface to guide the actions of the user. Instead, this is information that must be passed on from a peer, learned from a manual, tutorial, or help search, or encountered through trial and error. Oftentimes, these functions are expected by experienced users of related software and/or hardware. Ableton is able to equip Push with added or refined functionality through updates, and these new features typically end up being protections--the desired action is possible, but it is a seemingly buried functionality that requires a concerted effort to uncover. For the experienced Live user, it may be more efficient for their workflow to access this functionality on their computer instead of trying to perform the action with Push.

Preventions
Lastly, preventions, akin to “anti-affordances,”[9] are simply those actions that the design of the instrument does not permit. While it may seem arbitrary and even unfair to expect a system to support a particular action, it must be referenced to the other systems it competes with. The obvious comparison for the Push is Novation’s Launchpad. Further, Push’s functionality will be continually compared with that of Live’s by experienced users, and this topic in particular gets to the core of Push’s affordances and constraints. Push is intended to be a hardware representation of Live, but some workflows are more easily facilitated with Push than others. This draws criticism in particular from those who expect Push to better support the arrangement view, a topic that will be discussed in the final section.

 “Technology” or Musical Instrument? Assessing the Presumptions Regarding Push
Push is not a device where the one way to use it is obvious. It kind of reminded me of when they came out with the Apple Watch. It’s this thing that does all kinds of stuff. What is it? It’s a thing. We don’t know what it is, it just does all kinds of things. We’re not actually sure how people are going to use it. That’s what threw me at first about the Push. They called it an instrument, and it had some instrument-like features. It certainly can replace a piano-keyboard or a drum machine, but it does a lot more than that, too. It was kind of confusing at first. Do I use this in front of people? Do I use it more like a mixing board in my studio? Is this something where I should be able to do everything live, or is this more like I set this thing up and use it? That was the challenge at first when I was first learning it on my own, how would I teach this to kids? 

The above quote is taken from an interview I conducted with Will Kuhn, a music technology and media teacher at Lebanon High School in Ohio, USA. Kuhn started teaching Live to his students in 2008, and beginning in 2015 became “the guinea pig program” for the Ableton education initiative in which they contribute refurbished Push controllers to school programs. Given that Kuhn was one of the first educators to teach Push and that he teaches approximately 350 students every year, he contributes a seasoned practitioner’s perspective to how new learners navigate Push. Kuhn elucidates the amorphous qualities of Push; it is chameleon-like in that it can be played or used differently depending on the context in which it is pressed into service. Mostly notably, Kuhn’s line of questioning gets at the essence of the purpose of Push and its presumptions; is Push a “technology” or a musical instrument?

In Western culture when something new is produced it is often referred to as a “technology” because it has yet to develop a social history with regard to its use(s).[10] With the passage of time, “most technological artifacts are normalized into everyday life and no longer seen as ‘technological’ at all, while whatever is new becomes viewed as ‘technological.’”[11] This explanation helps to explain why Push—unveiled in 2013—may be regarded as a “technology” despite the fact that it was designed to be a musical instrument.

While Push boasts of many features that other instruments do not possess, it is not an altogether novel design. Its design integrates concepts from other musical instruments and technologies, and as a result, those new to Push are not necessarily novices. Paul Théberge aptly stresses: “only the crudest technological determinism could support the argument that musicians approach these new technologies without bringing with them at least some of their own ‘accumulated sensibilities’ with regards to music making.”[12] What are the “accumulated sensibilities” of Push from the perspective of its creators? In an effort to answer this question I asked Jesse Terry to discuss, “the thinking behind the initial concept and the influences from other instruments and interfaces that came into play,” and he responded:

We started out looking at something to control and play drums. I grew up on the MPC 2000 and that was a big part of the influence, but we were also interested in step-sequencers and combining the two of these things. Nothing really had a great drum interface and step-sequencing interface, so combining these two was part of it. We had a decent design we were working on, then our CEO said it should work for melodies and harmonies: “go ahead, make that work.” And so, I dug into how we could turn the grid into an isomorphic instrument. A couple of things where it comes from: I’m a guitar player so this fourths layout is related to the guitar. We were seeing other great products like the Monome and the LinnStrument (Roger Linn’s instrument) and seeing how these were working. We were thinking there was a way to use the 8x8 interface to both play drums, and play melodies, and harmonies. Somewhere along the prototyping, we got to the folding of the notes of the scale, and that turned out to be really fun with the combination of the fourths layout from the guitar—just that you could lock your hand in one position and you could play scales or chords really easily. Now, there’s people that play it chromatically, there are some real virtuosos on it, and, there are some that play it in the in-key mode, which is great for me. Even if you have some musical training, it’s a lot of fun.
 
Presuming Push as a Modular Musical Instrument       
As a starting point, it is presumed that an individual who wishes to play Push is able to grasp the concept that it is a multi-purpose instrument. Modular instruments like Push are descendants, at least in part, of the modern drum kit. In The Drum Book: A History of the Rock Drum Kit, Geoff Nicholls explains that at the beginning of the twentieth century the individual components of the drum kit as we now know it existed, but they were not played together by a single individual. Faced with restricted space and budgets, percussionists performing in theatre productions were encouraged to take on the role of multi-tasking musicians, and the “trap kit” began to take shape:
Everything but the kitchen sink was suspended on and around the bass drum, soon leading to the development of a metal “console” that surmounted the bass drum…On top of the console was a traps tray (traps is short for contraptions or trappings) with space for bird whistles, klaxons, ratchets, and other sound effects.[13]

The drum kit’s history is one that hinges on modularity. The idea that a component of the kit can be added in or taken away and still be perceived by players and listeners alike as the same instrument is a testament to its modular form. Through to the present time, drummers continue to customize their kits, with electronic triggers and computers becoming increasingly more visible components of a contemporary setup. The constants of the drum kit would seem to be the snare drum, bass drum, and cymbals, but even these are subject to substitution or subtraction.   

Push is similarly modular; it can be a melodic instrument, drum machine, step sequencer, sampler, mixer, and “Launchpad.” These are Push’s core provisions. Yet, despite its versatility, Push was designed with a particular workflow in mind. It privileges a certain pedagogy, which Jesse Terry distills in the following section.
 
Ableton’s Live PA Pedagogy
Terry: We do want to constrain it into a certain workflow, that you work in a certain way. We certainly want to get rid of a lot of the distractions that happen on your computer screen. We wanted to create a workflow that was linear. We did this in a couple different ways: for Push 1 we did this thing called a “red routes,” based on a traffic concept in London. They had really bad traffic problems and they started to figure out where the traffic was getting bottlenecked and it helped them to redesign their city and make traffic run smoother. So, we have a similar list that we came up with—we call it a user map. We have a backbone of the main things people want to do, like: you want to create beats, you want to create melodies, you want to record, you want to loop what you record, you want to export your song when you’re done. There’s a linear way that you can do all of this, so we try to do that in the most minimal way as possible. I think by Push 2, we have a lot of features, and I think for some people it’s a maybe a little too much, so we think about those limitations. We like limitations generally.

There’s a very specific way that Push 2 can work, (like it’s) the information architecture of how the devices and tracks work. It’s a lot better than Push 1, but it’s still sort of limited by our display and where the buttons are laid out. This takes us a lot of time and argumentation to get over, get through how all this is laid out. It’s not perfect but I like the way it’s working…Obviously, we [Ableton] have banks and banks of device parameters. You can get into as deep as you want to. We do try to constrict the workflow you’re doing, so you’re always heading in a creative direction; you don’t get stuck in the details if you don’t want to.


Based on the sequence of videos Ableton provides on their website,[14] their suggested path to making music with Push is to begin by building up a beat before proceeding to add melody, followed by harmony, and thereafter venturing into sampling, clip launching, mixing, sound design, and recording audio. This linear approach of gradually building up a track is a practice commonly used in the style/genre “Live PA”,[15] which is understandable considering Live’s popularity amongst electronic music producers. DeSantis reasoned in the “Introduction to Ableton Live and Push for Educators” webinar:

We like to think that a fun way to create music is to start from nothing and to actually get your hands dirty playing pads, which is something that’s maybe a little bit more immediate than using a mouse to click and drag, for example.
           
The “start from nothing” approach is but one way electronic musicians compose. As Mark Butler explains, some EDM (electronic dance music) producers instead start with something—presets:

Some musicians do make use of presets, but in ways that are very much in keeping with the creative approaches favored within EDM as a whole. First, they do not use them without significant modification. The transformations that they introduce may be textural, rhythmic, or timbral. Second, they do not form entire tracks from presets, but instead incorporate them into larger compositional designs. Third, they use presets as vehicles for live improvisation. Modifications—for instance, muting or unmuting instrumental parts within the patterns, or changing their rhythmic values—almost always take place during real time and are generally unplanned. In this way, presets serve as tools with which to improvise.[16]

Ableton’s Live PA pedagogy with Push conforms to a more traditional definition of what constitutes a musical instrument, most notably by privileging the actions of real-time sound creation and manipulation. Consider the criteria suggested by Mark Katz that determine whether or not an object can be considered a musical instrument:
  • It involves real-time sound manipulation
  • It has a body of techniques developed specifically for it
  • It has its own distinctive sound
  • The object itself is either specifically designed or modified for making music
  • The sound it generates is considered to be music by a community of listeners[17]
Katz, a violinist and hip-hop DJ scholar, posits that objects come to be recognized as musical instruments through a process of social validation, with the members of a musical community assessing the aforementioned criteria. Ableton’s promoted “Live PA” approach to learning how to play Push satisfies all of Katz’s criteria, with the exception of “it has its own distinctive sound,” which is true of any MIDI controller. But, considering that Push is a proprietary product of Ableton, its users rely on similar sound libraries of “instruments” and “drum racks,” which creates a conduit for creating music with a similar timbral palette.

Furthermore, playing an 8x8 grid of buttons constrains musical thinking in certain ways. For example, commencing making music by programming a drum beat with the step sequencer forces the user to construct a rhythm by adding one percussive element at a time onto the grid. As Tiger Roholt argues, in working within a metrically perfect grid the rhythmic nuances that contribute to the feeling of a groove cannot be programmed.[18] The human “feel” of a beat achieved by a producer like J Dilla, who incorporated slight imperfections in his beatmaking,[19] is lost in the step sequencer approach and no amount of added “swing” can emulate these nuances. Push affords other methods of beatmaking, which Ableton promotes in their video tutorials, but sequencing is the first tutorial following “General Overview,” making it the next logical step for those following a linear learning approach. Arguably, for most users it is easier to make a beat with the step sequencer than playing and programming it in real-time because the latter requires more physical dexterity and coordination to execute.

Taken together, the qualities of sounds provided by Live that are triggered by Push and the constrained ways in which Push can be played—especially considering the influence of Ableton’s promoted approaches in their video tutorials--Push does have a distinctive sound. Its characteristic sound is not that of a specific timbre, but rather a collection of Ableton-curated sounds that are layered piecemeal in real-time utilizing a body of grid-based playing techniques. Whereas most musical instruments are recognized aurally by their unique sonic characteristics, Push’s plurality is its defining trait. Before the advent of Push, Live PA performers played the components of the recording studio to audiences using bespoke modular setups consisting of drum machines, samplers, launchpads, keyboards, mixers, etc.; Push amalgamates the functions of these individual components into a singular instrument. As amorphous as Push may potentially be, Ableton privileges certain avenues to music making with Push over others, and this is most evident in the learning resources aimed at new users.
 
Push and the Privileges and Provisions Concerning the Novice
In the case of Live, the user base is vast, and therefore those encountering Push as Ableton’s preferred adjunct to playing Live constitute a diverse body of musicians with varied expectations on what actions ought to be afforded. But what does a novice expect from the experience of playing Push for the first time, if anything? I posed the following question to Jesse Terry: “Are there certain workflows that you see new people gravitate towards?” and he responded:

We do a ton of user testing. I think Push is not really designed for a beginner necessarily. I think it’s a tough challenge to get into Push and Live at the same time. You have a lot to learn and they are kind of a little different. There are some ways they relate and there are some ways that they don’t. It’s a tall task for a brand-new user. I think there are some ways we can do it better for beginners. One thing I’ve noticed is, a lot of times you have a person in a studio who’s like the expert who knows Live and Push in[side] and out. Their friend comes over and he or she plays the notes part, or the beats part, but they don’t get to the outer buttons or the display, or things like that. The physical part of playing the notes comes quickly, but the “how you record”, “how you loop”, “how you put together a song”, that stuff, you gotta know quite a bit. If you’re getting into session view and Live, it’s like a whole other concept.

Bell: Are there actions that seem easy or accessible, and that’s a starting point that they do early on when they’re playing Push?

Terry: I think the drumming seems to be the place where I see people starting with the hitting drums and sequencing drums quickly. I think it’s a fun way to get started. And then playing with the scales is really rewarding, especially if you’re not trained. Putting it into blues-scale mode and bashing your fingers on it, and it all sounds good can be really exciting for new people. I would say there’s probably some finer points for the layout that people don’t know about yet, and how to get around loops and things like this that are probably a little harder to learn, I think.

I feel that putting together what you’ve done into a song isn’t so intuitive. You have to know about “scenes” and Live and how these relate, and how to trigger them and record them and all this kind of stuff. There’s no like pattern-sequencing, like on some of the other instruments out there.


It is clear from Terry’s responses to my questions that the linear workflow promoted by Ableton—as evidenced in their video tutorials—is reflected in their user tests of Push novices. New users tend to start with beatmaking and then progress to layering melodies using the various scale modes. Notably, novices can have engaging and meaningful music-making experiences playing Push despite being oblivious to the vast possibilities afforded. Terry acknowledges that new Push users who lack knowledge of Live’s functionality will likely encounter some conceptual barriers. The initial barrier to entry is not prohibitively daunting as new users quickly intuit how to make a beat and layer sounds over top of it. Thereafter the learning curve scales up considerably, and this is evidenced by the underutilization of Push’s full set of functions.  

Bell: Are there things that you can do with Push but you find that people aren’t finding them as much, or that aren’t used as much. Like that feature is there but for whatever reason it doesn’t get used as much?

Terry: Definitely. I think the Fixed Length button, is a button that has a few tricks to it that are really fun. But I don’t think anyone knows about them other than those of us who made it. [For example] If you press record with Fixed Length off, and you just play, and play, and play, it will loop the last couple measures of what you’ve been playing. For me, that’s how I always use it. I record and jam out with Record [button] on the whole time, and then once I get to something I liked playing, I press the Fixed Length [button] and it’s just there looped for me.

I’m not sure how successful we are on the New button and how we move around in scenes and session view. I’m not sure if people get what the New button does necessarily. People seem to get Convert [button] on Push 2 which we weren’t sure was going to happen but it seems like a lot of people use that.


Terry’s perspective regarding which Push functions are underused is based on a comparison of his own experiences and expectations with what he observes in user testing. Whereas some of the functions of Push are utilized as anticipated, others go untouched. This last point was reiterated in my interview with Will Kuhn who noted that some of the buttons on Push are avoided by his students. Typically, a function that is not used is a protection; it exists, but is not easily accessed and as a result goes unnoticed or neglected. This, however, is not the case with the function-specific buttons Terry and Kuhn observed being passed over. If a function-specific button is not used by most people, it could be removed or replaced in a newer Push model in favor of a different function. Alternatively, the underused button could be repurposed through an update on the existing Push model (Ableton strives to improve Push’s functionality in tandem with their updates to Live. For example, problems reported with Push in Live 9.5 related to the awkward ergonomics of muting and soloing multiple tracks were resolved in Live 9.6).
 
Protections and Preventions Encountered by Experienced Users   
While updates may serve to improve the overall experience of playing Push for many users, a singular design for mapping and accessing advanced functions is unlikely to garner universal approval amongst the collective Push user base. Beyond the beginner level, the paths pursued by more advanced Push users can differ considerably. As Terry explained, Ableton attempts to account for these varied approaches by identifying and emulating different “user personas.”

Bell: With people that are more experienced, are you noticing certain paths that people are pursuing when they are playing Push that are common, or not?

Terry: We have different user personas that we use in our company; different user types. We have a beginner-type, an instrumentalist-type who is maybe not as concerned with all the details of the synthesizers, but tweaks some knobs, checks out some presets; the people who are deep into Max for Live and love to get into FM modulation of whatever, and go as deep as possible. With this broad of a product, you’re dealing with a bunch of different kinds of users. They’re using it in different ways. You have some people who are even using it to launch clips and play Live, which is really not the primary use case of this product, but there’s people doing that. There’s a guy in Brooklyn who plays jazzy chords in the chromatic mode and can play Bill Evans-jazz on it. Then you have people who are using it as a drum machine. These are all different aspects of the workflow that we want to make with it but some people go deeper into certain areas than others. Definitely a lot of people using it to play drums, and finger drumming. Then there are people who are deep into sound design, because it offers pretty deep control of the synthesizers in Live and that sort of stuff. Working with samples is the other thing that is huge that gets very deep. 

Bell: And in working with samples, my perception is that it’s something that is a little more advanced, but I’d like to hear your take on that.

Terry: It’s interesting. I think it comes down to user types. I think there’s people that could never use a sample and be totally fine. And then there are people who, that’s why they got into Live, because of sampling and time-stretching. I know this is huge in hip-hop and things like that, but when you find out what you can do in a warped audio file compared to what you used to have to do to make that audio fit together on an MPC, this blows peoples’ minds; that you can play audio at different pitches and it stays at the same tempo. Chop it up now. In Push 2 you could chop it up automatically and this kind of stuff.

I saw a user test yesterday of a guy who bought a Push 2, he’s had it for a couple weeks, and he hadn’t really gotten too deep into it and he learned what he could do with samples and was like “Oh wow!”. It was kind of hidden for him.

Terry repeatedly used the word “deep” to describe users’ engagement with Push in different domains of music production, highlighting a broad range of practices. When users discover what is possible with Push beyond the basic, they are, as Terry described, genuinely ecstatic. As users find faults, such as those experienced transitioning from Push 1 to Push 2, Ableton aims to fix them through updates, and Push evolves. Yet, there remain some qualms that have yet to be quelled. As Will Kuhn affirmed, “Push is session view,” and Push’s limited compatibility with arrangement view is a considerable flaw in the eyes of some users. Answering the question, “What cannot be controlled from Push?”, Dennis DeSantis explained in the webinar, “Introduction to Ableton Live and Push for Educators”:

Push is really not designed to do much of anything in the arrangement view at all. So, when it comes to actually editing your song, mixing it, doing all that exporting stuff, for this we really recommend moving to Live. Push doesn’t really deal with any of the arrangement view functionality at all. It’s really designed as a kind of alternative window into the session view, for creating clips that are in the session.[20]

The explanation is logical, but the reasoning is arbitrary and alienating to Live users who prefer working in arrangement view and would like to play Push but cannot. Highlighting functions that are not possible (preventions) or are difficult to access (protections) due to design constraints raises critical questions about what music-making actions are considered necessary, rudimentary, higher order, and dispensable. Ultimately, the question to be asked is, “What should be doable with Push?” So far, Ableton’s answer has been to stick to session view. Session view is the preset of Push. Session view is so prevalent in the design of Push, and affords so many music-making possibilities, that it distracts from arrangement view being hidden in plain sight. To the arrangement view aficionado, Push does not tap into a fundamental aspect of Live. 
 
Conclusions
Since most users will never change their default software options, the seemingly small decisions made by developers may have a profound effect on the way users will experience the software every day.[21]

Hardware and software are distinct domains, but DeSantis’ description of the “tyranny of the default” in software is equally applicable, if not more, to music hardware such as Push. While Live users are explicitly encouraged to customize their workflows to combat presets, Push users are implicitly asked to accept the preset architecture and its associated affordances as they are. This is not an Ableton-specific phenomenon; every instrument constrains. Singular designs inevitably privilege some users and alienate others. The case of Ableton Push serves to illustrate that when a company produces both the product and the pedagogy, it has a profound impact on the ways in which people make music.

Although Push has only been in the hands of the public since 2013, a community of players has embraced it as their primary instrument and already Liszt-esque virtuosos have developed and honed a body of techniques that are Push-specific. Such a conception of virtuosity is predicated on the prizing of dexterity and speed, positioning Push alongside more traditional instruments like the piano and violin. While this may serve to validate Push as a “real” musical instrument in some circles, it’s also a rather narrow view of what a Push player can do. The Live PA approach to playing Push does not fully harness its modularity, nor does it fully exploit Live’s vast possibilities. Push is promoted as an escape from screen distractors, allowing one to concentrate solely on music making, but as one of the attendees at the New York City “Ableton University Tour” event remarked, “that’s your problem!” What this attendee was inferring with this comment was that self-discipline was the solution, and that a hybrid setup of playing both Push and Live in tandem maximizes music-making possibilities and supports more workflows. Like Push, Ableton’s pedagogy is still in its infancy, and just as Push users have challenged Ableton to change how Push functions, they will challenge and change Ableton’s pedagogy, too. This last point notwithstanding, Ableton’s Live PA pedagogy has been successful in engaging novices to play Push. Furthermore, any prescribed path Ableton champions to play Push will undoubtedly be subjected to scrutiny because Live’s user base encompasses a population with vast experiences and expectations. Push cannot be everything to everyone, but by having a vested interest in user feedback and making a concerted effort to allay the pain points in Push’s design, Ableton has accelerated Push’s evolution. Whether or not Ableton’s pedagogy will parallel this trajectory remains to be seen.   
    
The “5 Ps” conceptual model is not intended to be a rigid classification system, but rather a rough guide to aid in the analysis of a design’s affordances and constraints. It is critical for educators and students alike to continually consider how the designs of their musical instruments guide their actions, and also question how the predominant pedagogies influence these actions. Instruments are much more than objects that serve as a means to an end; Aden Evens argues that instruments become an extension of the person: “Playing then overcomes technique, so that player, instrument, and sound are assembled in that sublime moment into a single machine with unlimited possibility.”[22] Given this embodied connection we have with our instruments, it is essential that we continually question the presumptions, privileges, provisions, protections, and preventions experienced when we play them. All instruments are subject to change, and the user base of an instrument plays a pivotal role in influencing this evolutionary process. By examining the disparity between what is possible and what is desirable, the design can be bettered, and new affordances can be conceived. Pedagogies will need to adapt accordingly.
 
References

[1] “Introduction to Ableton Live and Push for Educators,” Ableton, accessed November 10, 2016, https://www.Ableton.com/en/education/education-resources/

[2] Adam P. Bell, “Can We Afford These Affordances? GarageBand and the Double-Edged Sword of the Digital Audio Workstation,” Action, Criticism, and Theory for Music Education 14, no. 1 (2015): 44-65.

[3] James J. Gibson, “The Theory of Affordances,” in Perceiving, Acting, and Knowing, eds. Robert E. Shaw and James Bransford Hillsdale (Hoboken, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1977), 127-143.
James J. Gibson, The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1979).

[4] Don A. Norman, The Psychology of Everyday Things (New York: Basic Books, 1988).
Don A. Norman, The Design of Everyday Things. New York: Doubleday, 1990).
 
[5] Don A. Norman, “Affordance, Conventions, and Design,” Interactions 6(3): 41.

[6] Don A. Norman, The Invisible Machine (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1988), 74.

[7] Graham Pullin, Design Meets Disability (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2009), 86.

[8] Andrew R. Brown, Music Technology and Education: Amplifying Musicality (New York: Routledge, 2015), 17.

[9] Don A. Norman, The Design of Everyday Things, revised (New York: Doubleday, 2013).

[10] Timothy D. Taylor, Strange Sounds: Music, Technology, and Culture (New York: Routledge, 2001).

[11] Ibid., p. 6

[12] Paul Théberge, Any Sound You Can Imagine: Making Music/Consuming Technology (Hanover, NH: Wesleyan University Press, 1997), 159.

[13] Geoff Nicholls, The Drum Book: A History of the Rock Drum Kit (New York: Backbeat, 2008), 8-9.
 
[14] “Learn Push,” Ableton, accessed November 10, 2016, https://www.Ableton.com/en/push/learn-push/

[15] Will Kuhn, personal communication.

[16] Mark J. Bulter, Playing with Something That Runs: Technology, Improvisation, and Composition in DJ and Laptop Performance (New York: Oxford University Press), 43.

[17] Mark Katz, Groove Music: The Art and Culture of the Hip-Hop DJ (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 62.

[18] Tiger C. Roholt, Groove: A Phenomenology of Rhythmic Nuance (New York: Bloomsbury, 2014).

[19] Jordan Ferguson, Donuts (New York: Bloomsbury, 2014), 81.

[20] “Introduction to Ableton Live and Push for Educators,” Ableton, accessed November 10, 2016, https://www.Ableton.com/en/education/education-resources/

[21] Dennis DeSantis, Making Music: 74 Creative Strategies for Electronic Music Producers (Berlin: Ableton, 2015), 66.

[22] Aden Evens, Sound Ideas: Music, Machines, and Experience (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005), 84.
 

1 Comment

Assessing the Song Machine

10/28/2017

0 Comments

 
0 Comments

Sonic Signature: NYU IMPACT Presentation and Worksheet

8/2/2017

0 Comments

 
sonic_signature_workshop__1_.pptx
File Size: 7173 kb
File Type: pptx
Download File

sonic_signature_worksheet.docx
File Size: 61 kb
File Type: docx
Download File

0 Comments

The Oxford Handbook of Air Guitar and Music Education (2017)

4/1/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
Contents:

  1. The New Sound is No Sound: A Philosophy for the Air Guitar in Music Education
  2. Ivory Tower of Power: The Segovia Method and the Legitimization of the Air Guitar in the Academy
  3. G Strings and O Faces: Air Guitarists’ Facial Expressions and Audience Perceptions of Authentic Performance
  4. Can’t Fret It, Won’t Fret It: Overcoming Air Guitar Performance Anxiety
  5. Find the Key and Take a Ride: Improvisational Strategies for Air Guitar Soloists
  6. “Played It ‘Til My Fingers Bled”: Performance-Related Air Guitar Injuries
  7. Bach Rock: Two-Handed Tapping and Other Advanced Techniques for Air Guitar
  8. Bow Chicka Wow Wow: Wah-Wah and Other Effects for Air Guitar
  9. What Would Jimi Do? Modifying the Air Guitar for Left Handedness
  10. There’s An App for That? Transforming the General Music Classroom with AirGuitar for iPad
  11. Cheap Tricks: Air Guitar Ensembles on a Budget

0 Comments

Popular Music Pedagogy: 11 Essential Readings*

1/22/2017

0 Comments

 
*not from the field of music education
For the 2017-18 academic year, we'll be rolling out a course called Popular Music Pedagogy at the University of Calgary. This course will draw on the usual suspects like Little Kids Rock and Musical Futures, but also my extensive experience playing in dive bars.

This reading list is a compilation of books from outside of the field of music education that helps to fill in the gaps on what has been reported by music education researchers on popular music pedagogy. For the most part, these books delve into process, that is, how popular music is made (in the school of thought to which I subscribe, by focusing on the processes of making music, we simultaneously focus on learning).

Let's Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste
​Carl Wilson 

Picture
Skip Bourdieu and go straight to this. It's an accessible read on musical taste framed through Wilson's attempt to understand why people like the music of Celine Dion. It's brilliant and funny all at once. Having a music snob for a music teacher is not helpful. If you suffer from this condition, maybe this will help. 

On Becoming a Rock Musician
​H. Stith Bennett

Picture
Published in 1980, this book covered everything about how rock musicians learn, decades before music education researchers did. Notably, Bennett devotes a substantial part of the book to explaining how important the recording process is to rock music, which has largely been absent from music education research until relatively recently. Key concept: recording consciousness. 

Standout quote:
Becoming a rock musician is not a process which is steeped in the history, theory, and pedagogy of prestigious academies; nor is it a learning experience which is guided by an informal tradition of teachers and teachings. Becoming a rock musician is not even a process of apprenticeship. In fact, rock music is learned to a much greater extent than it is ever taught by teachers. 

If I had to pick one chapter...Chapter 6: Technology and the Music

Noteworthy: This book is getting a re-release later this year with Columbia University Press. Sadly, the awesome orange cover has been replaced: https://cup.columbia.edu/book/on-becoming-a-rock-musician/9780231182850 

The Poetics of Rock: Cutting Tracks, Making Records
​Albin Zak

Picture
Zak masterfully explains the recording processes of "rock," but much of what he discusses is applicable to how other styles of popular music are made in studios, too. Although recording infrastructure has changed significantly since this book was published, the core concepts are just as relevant to the digital domain as they are to its analog ancestors that the book was based on. 

Standout quote:
Recording moved almost inevitably from a process of collecting, preserving, and disseminating to one of making. The aesthetic criterion shifted from the sound of the actual performance to the sound of the recording.

The song is what can be represented on a lead sheet; it usually includes words, melody, chord changes, and some degree of formal design. The arrangement is a particular musical setting of the song. It provides a more detailed prescriptive plan: instrumentation, musical parts, rhythmic groove, and so forth. The track is the recording itself. As the layer that represents the finished musical work, it subsumes the other two. That is, when we hear a record, we experience both song and arrangement through the sounds of the track.


If I had to pick one chapter...Chapter 3: Sound as Form

Pop Music - Technology and Creativity
Timothy Warner

Picture
Between Bennett and Zak, the topic of how rock music is made is mostly covered, but Warner fills a critical void--pop. Focusing on the work of 80s pop producer Trevor Horn, Warner explains the working systems of producer teams in place at that time, which is quite similar to how contemporary pop hits are made at present. 

Standout quote:
The transposition of the Romantic notion of the artist as inspired individual into popular culture is undermined by the reality of pop music production, which is almost invariably the result of teamwork. And it is in the recording studio, the very crucible of creativity in pop music, that the team works. 

If I had to pick one chapter...Chapter 2: The Production of Pop Music

The Producer as Composer
Virgil Moorefield

Picture
"Composition" can be a contentious term. To some, it's the craft of a specific type of musician, whereas others, like Moorefield, interpret the term more literally, as in putting music together. The chapter called "The Studio As Musical Instrument" pretty much sums up the book. You can find individual books on the Beatles, the Beach Boys, Phil Spector, Public Enemy, and many of the other artists profiled in this book that go into more depth about their production processes, but Moorefield's glance at each makes for a great primer.

​Standout quote:
Rock and the many subgenres it has spawned are a different story: timbre and rhythm are arguably the most important aspects of this music. Generally, nothing beyond a lyric sheet and possibly a few chord changes is written down; the recording of a song functions as its score, its definitive version. It is no accident that the rise of rock ‘n’ roll happened almost at the same time as fundamental technological innovations such as tape editing and overdubbing.

If I had to pick one chapter...Chapter 1: From Mirror to Beacon

Groove: A Phenomenology of Rhythmic Nuance
Tiger Roholt

Picture
A key concept I continually reiterate in my popular music history course is that James Brown is the pivot point because he better than anyone else popularized groove-based music, and we've been vamping ever since. He vamped on vamps, and then Public Enemy vamped on those vamps on vamps. Then it became cool to sample Chuck D, so then we had vamps on vamps on vamps on vamps. James Brown (and his bands) may be the most influential musician(s) of 21st Century popular music because most everything now is based on the concept of a groove (vamp).

Roholt explains so thoroughly and clearly what a groove is, how a groove works, and why grooves are important. With the vast majority of music education students coming from band/choir/orchestra backgrounds (at least that's the case in the US and Canada), I've found that they don't often have experience making groove-based music, although they listen to lots of it. Roholt's concentration on the very little things helps to fill the void of the predominant popular music pedagogies that tend to focus on just a few core principles. Key concept: Grooves must be embodied to be experienced. 

​Standout quote:
The nuance level helps us understand why listeners can be so enthralled with music that seems very basic from a music-theoretic perspective, and why musicians invest so much time perfecting seemingly simple parts. 

Black Noise:
​Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America

Tricia Rose

Picture
What Rose does so well is discuss rap as a cultural phenomenon. This way of thinking should be applied to all popular music pedagogies. Authenticity comes from participating in a musical culture, as opposed to emulating one. Formulations of musics lead to formulaic musics, depriving them of their cultural meaning. 

Standout quote:
To interpret rap as a direct or natural outgrowth of oral African-American forms is to romanticize and decontextualize rap as a cultural form. It requires erasing rap’s significant sonic presence and its role in shaping technological, cultural, and legal issues as they relate to defining and creating music. Retaining black cultural priorities is an active and often resistive process that has involved manipulating established recording policies, mixing techniques, lyrical construction, and the definition of music itself.
 
Rap producers are not so much deliberately working against the cultural logic of Western classical music as they are working within and among distinctly black practices, articulating stylistic and compositional priorities found in black cultures in the diaspora. 


If I had to pick one chapter...Chapter 3: Soul Sonic Forces: Technology, Orality, and Black Cultural Practice in Rap Music

Making Beats: The Art of Sample-Based Hip-Hop
Joseph Schloss

Picture
The first time I read this book, I didn't think that much of it, but now I consider it one of the best academic books I've read to date. If I taught course on ethnography, this would be the text. But this is not a post about research, so back to the topic of pedagogy... 

As Rose does in Black Noise, Schloss frames hip-hop production as a musical practice rooted in African-American culture. Schloss:

The rules of hip-hop are African American, but one need not be African American to understand or follow them.
 
To follow the rules, one must first learn them from people who already know. In order to learn them from people who already know, one must convince them that one is a worthy student.


As Schloss acknowledges in the 2014 edition (the book was originally published in 2004), much has changed in hip-hop production since the passing of the so-called golden age of the sample-based era (mostly due to copyright laws). Making Beats does not discuss contemporary hip-hop production practices, but it's packed full of observations and insights that are still highly relevant. 

Standout quote:
Hip-hop’s idiosyncrasies were designed to represent the spirit and intelligence and individuality of its many creators, in a world that would have preferred to ignore them. So when we focus on the seemingly minor artistic and practical choices that go into hip-hop production…we are not minimizing hip-hop’s social or political significance. We are celebrating its humanity. 

Looking for a thesis/dissertation topic? Here's a very clear 'need for study' from an expert:

We need more studies of hip-hop in specific times, in specific places, in specific communities, from specific points of view. We need more studies of specific aspects of hip-hop; not just the elements, but also the way those elements are practiced in different social and cultural environments. We need more discussion of the way artistic choices are being made in different contexts—especially musical choices—and what’s at stake when those choices are made.

If I had to pick one chapter...Chapter 2: "It's about Playing Records": History

Groove Music: The Art and Culture of the Hip-Hop DJ
​Mark Katz

Picture
I see this book as a reminder from recent history on the important role music educators can play as gatekeepers to what counts (and therefore what does not) as music, and by extension, what passes for a musical instrument. Katz chronicles the rise of the hip-hop DJ and turntablism, paying particular attention to the idea that, "The transformation of an object into an instrument involves not a single act, but a process, and this process requires not a single individual, but an entire community." With this idea in mind, how are we--music educators--positioning ourselves in our communities? Are we championing the new? I hope so. 

Standout quote:
hip-hop production…is intimately tied up with the techniques and aesthetics of DJing. In the mid- and late 1980s, hip-hop DJing spawned a new art, the art of making beats. In some ways the two are quite different—DJs perform live, manipulating records in front of audiences, while producers compose, often slowly and painstakingly, using digital samplers, drum machines, synthesizers, or computers. But there is a strong link between the two, and in the minds of many beat makers, the DJ begat the producer, simple as that.

​If I had to pick one chapter...Chapter 2: Mix and Scratch--The Turntable Becomes a Musical Instrument: 1975-1978

Dub: Soundscapes and Shattered Songs in Jamaican Reggae
Michael Veal

Picture
It's true that much of what the contemporary producer does draws on a body of techniques derived from the hip-hop DJ, but it's also true that Jamaican dub producers are just as influential, if not more. The concept of using the recording studio as a musical instrument existed prior to dub's emergence, but Jamaican producers like King Tubby shifted the paradigm significantly, playing effects units and (small) mixers to create radical remixes from existing tracks.
​
Standout quote:
What made dub unique in the context of pop music both in Jamaica and worldwide was the creative and unconventional use recording engineers made of their equipment…This enabled them to fashion a new musical language that relied as much on texture, timbre, and soundscape, as it did on the traditional musical parameters of pitch, melody, and rhythm. 

The Song Machine
John Seabrook

Picture
Despite his ubiquity, relatively little has been written about producer Max Martin. Seabrook gives us a glimpse into the music-making process of Martin and some other contemporary popular music producers. I have a created a project based on the "track-and-hook" method described by Seabrook: The Song Machine Assignment

Standout quote:
By the mid-2000s the track-and-hook approach to songwriting—in which a track maker/producer, who is responsible for the beats, the chord progression, and the instrumentation, collaborates with a hook writer/topliner, who writes the melodies—had become the standard method by which popular songs are written. The method was invented by reggae producers in Jamaica, who made one “riddim” (rhythm) track and invited ten or more aspiring singers to record a song over it. From Jamaica the technique spread to New York and was employed in early hip-hop. The Swedes at Cheiron industrialized it. Today, track-and-hook has become the pillar and post of popular song. 

If I had to pick one chapter...Chapter 16: "Ester Dean: On the Hook"

Inspiration: “I didn’t even know what a producer did.” - Max Martin
0 Comments
<<Previous

    adam patrick
    bell

    music educator & reveler

    Archives

    January 2021
    July 2020
    April 2020
    July 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    August 2017
    April 2017
    January 2017
    July 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    January 2016
    October 2015
    August 2015
    June 2015
    January 2015

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All