Assignments for
Music 43300

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These are the assignments for Music 43300, Larry Zbikowski’s seminar on issues in the analysis of popular music, Winter term 2002.

Please be aware that assignments beyond those for the current week are provisional. If you have questions about any assignment (current or future), please be sure to contact me.

Seminar notes

Readings

For the first meeting of the seminar, please read the following:

• Zbikowski, Chapter 5 from Conceptualizing Music. The chapter is titled "Cultural knowledge and musical ontology" and is in manuscriptnotes, examples, figures, and the lone table for the chapter will be found after the main text for the chapter.
• Zbikowski, "Aspects of Meaning Construction in Music." I gave a version of this paper at the Center for Semiotics at the University of Aarhus (Denmark) in January of '01. The introduction will provide a general frame for the approach to music I've been taking over the past few years, and the first main section ("Categorization and Conceptualization," pp. 3-12) will give you an overview of categorization and conceptual models that should help you make sense of chapter 5 of the book. You may wish to read the rest of this paper now, but you can also wait until laterwe'll be getting to it a bit later in the seminar.

Copies for each member of the seminar have been placed in my locker in the library. Contact me for details.

A brief practical exercise

I'd like you to bring in one example of popular music (and remember, we're working with quite a broad definition of "popular music") together with a sketch of a conceptual model for the piece. (The readings will give you a better idea of what I mean by a conceptual model.) Your model doesn't have to be that detailedreally a list of attributes that you deem essential to what counts as the piece. For instance, for the blues "They call me Dr. Professor Longhair" discussed at the end of the "Aspects of Meaning Construction" paper, a list of such attributes might be

• the words for the song
• the melody the words are sung to
• a basic 12-bar blues pattern (including the harmonic and rhythmic patterns)
• a moderate tempo and a relatively stripped-down style of performance

In the course of our first meeting we'll discuss the models you've come up with as a way of framing some of the basic issues connected with the analysis of popular music. (Because the range of music covered under the rubric "popular music" is really broad, it may be useful to have a recording at hand so that you can acquaint us with what this music sounds like. But it isn't necessary.)

Seminar notes

Readings:

• Simon Frith, Performing Rites, chapters 1 and 2 (pp. 3-46). The book is available at the Seminary Co-op Bookstore. It is also on reserve in the library.
• Carl Dahlhaus, Analysis and Value Judgment, pp. 3-10. A copy of the book is in the class locker.

Analysis:
As a way of getting acquainted with some of the issues I’d like you to look at Morgan Lewis’s "How High the Moon." A version from a jazz fake book was handed out in seminar--you are welcome to search out other versions (especially those including the words and/or piano arrangement) should you wish.

Please consider the following questions:

1. If we construe this piece as tonally organized, how is this tonality projected? Note that there isn’t a V-I progression in G major until mm. 16-17. Are there hierarchical relationships evident in the tonal organization? If so, what are they?
2. Different harmonizations of this tune are possible (indeed, the original piano sheet music has something different than that given in the fake book version). What is the relationship between the harmonic structure of this song and its melody? Does the melody always fit with the harmonic context (note especially m. 16 and m. 30).
3. Although four-bar phrases predominate, are they all equal? Compare especially the third and fourth phrases of the melody with the first and second.

Seminar notes

Readings:

• Simon Frith, Performing Rites, chapter 5: Where do sounds come from?, pp. 99-122. (Chapters 3 and 4 are highly recommended; time permitting we shall return to them, but for the present we will dig in to Part II of Frith's book.)
• Allen Forte, The American Popular Ballad of the Golden Era, 1924-1950, pp. 6-51 passim, 73-79 (the analysis of Kern's "All the Things You Are"), and the remainder of the Kern chapter, passim. [in class locker]
• The following essays from the Annual Review of Jazz Studies 9 (1997-98) [in class locker]:
  • Cynthia Folio, "'The Great Symphonic Theme': Multiple Takes on 'Stella's' Scheme," 3-24.
  • Henry Martin, "The Nature of Recomposition: Miles Davis and 'Stella by Starlight,'" 77-92.
  • Allen Forte, "The Real 'Stella' and the 'Real' 'Stella': A Response to "Alternate Takes," 93-102.

Analysis:

• Jerome Kern, "All the Things You Are"
• Victor Young, "Stella by Starlight"

Although the readings provide analyses of these songs, I would encourage you to begin with the songs, see what you can make of them (much as we did with "How High the Moon"), and then turn to the analyses.

Seminar notes

Readings:

• Simon Frith, Performing Rites, chapter 6: Rhythm: Race, Sex, and the Body, pp. 123-144.
• Mark Butler, "Turning the Beat Around: Reinterpretation, Metrical Dissonance, and Asymmetry in Electronic Dance Music," Music Theory Online 7/6 (December 2001).
• Optional: Harald Krebs, Fantasy pieces: metrical dissonance in the music of Robert Schumann (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999). Call number: ML410 .S34K92 1999 [on reserve]. If you are not familiar with the rhythmic theory Butler uses in his article, see chapter 2, pp. 22-61.

Seminar notes

N.B.: Topics for seminar papers are due 1/28/02.

Readings:

• Simon Frith, Performing Rites, chapter 7: Rhythm: Time, Sex, and the Mind, pp. 145-157.
• Peter Martens, "Three Led Zepplin Analyses," typescript.

Seminar notes

Readings:

• Dave Headlem, "Blues Transformations in the Music of Cream," in John Covach and Graeme M. Boone, Understanding Rock: Essays in Musical Analysis (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997): 59-92.
• Zbikowski, "Aspects of Meaning Construction in Music," pp. 29-34.
• Optional: Susan McClary, Conventional Wisdom: The Content of Musical Form (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), chapter 2 (pp. 32-62).

Listenings:

1. Robert Johnson, "Last Fair Deal Gone Down": CD 1, track 12 from Harry Smith's Anthology. See also the notes on Johnson on p. 60 of the booklet.
2. John Estes, "Milk Cow Blues": CD 2, track 12 Harry Smith's Anthology. See also the notes on Estes on p. 69 of the booklet.
3. Bessie Smith, "Thinking Blues": CD 2, track 15 from Bessie Smith, The Complete Recordings, vol. 3. This tune is discussed extensively in McClary's chapter 2.
4. Otis Spann, "Otis in the Dark": CD 1, track 5 from The Complete Candid by Otis Spann/Lightnin' Hopkins.
5. Professor Longhair, "(They Call Me) Dr. Professor Longhair," recorded April 3/4, 1974, from the LP Rock 'n' Roll Gumbo [on cassette]
6. Johnny Winter, "Tired of Tryin'," recorded in 1977, from the LP Nothin' But the Blues [on cassette]. Winter is playing with Muddy Waters's band, which included James Cotton on harmonica and Pine Top Perkins on piano.

Seminar notes

We will continue with the discussion of the blues initiated last week. Our new material relates to the phenomenon of the Number #1 tune, viewed through the lens of the Beatles's "Hey Jude." In this connection, read Walter Everett, The Beatles as Musicians: Revolver through the Anthology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 192-195 and passim.

Seminar notes

Music:

"The Grey Selchie," as it appears on the group Solas's CD The Words That Remain (1998). This is a Scots ballad collected by Francis James Child, which appeared in his five-volume work as "The Great Silkie of Sule Skerry." There is another traditional version, which appears in the Oxford Book of Ballads as "The Grey Selchie of Sule Skerry." There is no music given for the former, the latter does have music, but this should be regarded as giving a general indication as to how the words might have been sung within traditional settings. Solas's version makes use of a musical setting by James Waters. Photocopies of the Child and Oxford versions, and the words of the Solas version, will be in the locker.

"Hey Jude," as done by the group De Danann (1978 or 1981--there are conflicting dates).

The recordings will be on cassette.

Readings:

From Folk Music and Modern Sound (ed. Ferris and Hart), the following:

• Kenneth S. Goldstein, "The Impact of Recording Technology on the British Folksong Revival," pp 3-13.
• A. L. Lloyd, "Electric Folk Music in Britain," pp. 14-18.

From Contemporary Music and Music Cultures, the following:

• Charles Hamm, "The Acculturation of Musical Styles: Popular Music, U.S.A.," pp. 125-158. I have a feeling this will give us much to talk about, but focus if you can on relationships between "folk" music and popular music discussed by Hamm.
• Optional: Bruno Nettl, "Words and Music: English Folksong in the United States," 193-221

Seminar notes

Text and music

Simon Frith, Performing Rites, chapter 8, "Songs as Texts" (pp. 158-182).

Richard Middleton, Studying Popular Music (Milton Keynes: The Open University Press, 1990), the "Words and Music" section of chapter 6 to the end (pp. 227-244). I encourage you to look at the remainder of this chapter (which concerns analysis), but with the cautionary note that Middleton’s approach to analysis is so catholic as to be at times dizzying.

Optional: Zbikowski, Conceptualizing Music, chapters 2 (Cross-domain mapping) and 6 (The analysis of the nineteenth-century Lied). These chapters provide the context for an approach to song analysis I’ve been exploring for the past four or five years, which involves conceptual blending. This same approach (and some of the same analyses) can be seen in my "The blossoms of 'Trockne Blumen': Music and text in the early nineteenth century," Music Analysis, 18/3 (October 1999): 307-345.

Optional: Nicholas Cook, Analysing Musical Multimedia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 133-158. These pages include analyses of Schumann’s "Wenn ich in deiner Augen Seh'" and Madonna's "Material Girl"

Living Colour, "Glamour Boys," from Vivid. This is a bright pop tune that is nowhere near as deep or politically charged as some of the songs on this CD. Nonetheless, there are some interesting complications in the lyrics (for instance, just how the first-person character of the song actually relates to the glamour boys) and I’d like you to consider how text and music relate to one another. Nothing too deep, and yet the music is doing more than just providing a background for the words. I’ll put the CD in the locker.

The analysis of rock and roll

Lori Burns, "Analytic Methodologies for Rock Music: Harmonic and Voice-Leading Strategies in Tori Amos's 'Crucify'," in Expression in pop-rock music: a collection of critical and analytical essays, Walter Everett, ed. (New York: Garland, 2000). A CD (courtesy of M. Plotkin) is in the locker.

Seminar notes

Reading

Lori Burns, "Analytic Methodologies for Rock Music: Harmonic and Voice-Leading Strategies in Tori Amos's 'Crucify'," ancora.

Zbikowski, "Modeling the Groove: Conceptual Structures in Popular Music," typescript. Individual copies are in your folders in the Department; an additional copy has been placed in the class locker, along with a cassette which has the music for the examples.

Analysis

Little Feat, "Romance Without Finance," from Ain't Had Enough Fun [track 4]. Both the CD and a cassette which has only this tune on it are in the locker. For your analysis you need focus only on the first 20 seconds or so of the recording, which is where the groove for the tune is set up. I'd like you to try a partial transcription of as much of the music as you can get down. There's a fair amount to keep track of—drums, bass, two guitars, and piano—but if you concentrate on what's repeated after the voice comes in you'll have the essential features of the groove.