MUS 505: Popular Music and Culture

Lecture 1 - Class Introduction

Peter Johnston, PhD
peter.johnston@ryerson.ca
The Song Of The Summer
How does this song
connect to:
1. Pop music history
2. Mass media
3. Technology
4. Audience
Contact
Email: peter.johnston@ryerson.ca
• I will respond within 24 hours, Monday
to Friday (holidays excepted)
• Include your full name, course, and
section number in all correspondence:
Example: “James Brown, Music 505-01”
- emails without this
information will not get a
response.
Website: www.petejohnstonmusic.com
• Should you be interested in my music
and upcoming performances
Course Outline
• MUS 505 is a historical survey course
that explores the development of popular
music and culture in North America.
Lectures survey selections from the major
musical genres which constitute popular
music in the west, including as minstrelsy,
ragtime, jazz, swing, blues, Tin Pan Alley, rock
‘n’ roll, folk, disco, soul, country, reggae, funk,
pop and rap.
• The impact of changes in technology, race
relations and population demographics will
be discussed, as will the relationship
between popular music and the social
conditions and important events of each
period.
Course Outline
Objectives
• To learn how to think, talk, and write
critically about music
• To improve skills in writing and reading
comprehension
• To develop understanding of how
music functions within and as culture
• To increase knowledge of different
styles periods of American popular
music
Themes of the Course
Theme One: Critical Listening
• Popular music is put together using certain
instruments, forms, techniques and sounds. Students’
ability to distinguish different genres will be developed
through listening examples
Theme Two: Music and Society
• Music always reflects the values of the society in
which it is made. Of particular importance in this
course is how the Atlantic slave trade and resulting
racial politics of North America inform popular music
Theme Three: Music and Technology
• Changes in technology from the 19th century to the
present have changed how we both produce and
consume music
Theme Four: The Music Business
• Popular music is about making and spending money,
and this imperative shapes how music sounds
Scope of the Course
• This course offers a chronological survey of North
American culture and music, beginning in the
mid-1800s through to the 21st century
• North American culture is fundamentally defined by
colonialism, the slave trade, and the life
experiences of the displaced indigenous people and
Africans who forcibly taken from Africa and forced
into hard labour in North America
• North American popular music is a fusion of the
musics of the European colonizers, the African
slaves, and to a lesser extent the Indigenous
people of North America
• We will discuss the key genres of popular music, and
examine the influential musicians in these genres
Course Materials
• Textbook: Starr and Waterman, American
Popular Music: from Minstrelsy to MP3 available
from the bookstore
• The course is built from the 4th edition, but
the recent 5th edition works just as well - use
earlier editions at your own risk
• No need to purchase the listening portion of
the textbook: all listening examples for the
tests will be on YouTube Playlists
• All listening and video examples from the
lectures are available on YouTube
• Lecture slides will be made available as
downloadable PDFs on the day of class through
D2L
Expectations
Course Expectations include:
1. 1 three-hour lecture per week - 1 hour sections
are a continuation of 2 hour lectures, not labs
or tutorials
2. 25-40 pages of reading per week from the
textbook
3. 10 short online multiple choice quizzes on the
weekly readings
4. 2 Listening Identification tests
5. 1 Listening Analysis tests
6. 1 Essay
7. A Mid-term test and a Final exam
Evaluation
Weekly Reading Questions 10%
Midterm Test 15%
Midterm Listening Test 5%
Listening Analysis Test 10%
Essay 30%
Final Listening Test 5%
Final Test 25%

All tests and exams are multiple choice

How To Reach The Throne
1. Come to class: your chances of passing this course are much higher
if you do.You can pass if you skip class, but it won’t be as easy as you
think it will be.
2. Your final grade is your responsibility: stay on top of the
readings, the tests dates, and the deadlines, all of which are listed on
the syllabus. Track your own progress on D2L - that’s why it’s there.
3. You start each course in university with a 0, and earn
your way up to an A, not the opposite: evidence of hard
work and improvement is rewarded
4. Asking questions and participating in class discussions will
keep the lectures entertaining for all and will help you understand the
content
5. Come to office hours our ask the instructor questions
before or after class: keep yourself informed by going straight to
the top if you need advice or clarification
6. Give your instructor feedback in person, during the
course: Rate My Professor reviews are helpful to future students, but
you can help improve a course for yourself while you are taking it by
bringing your concerns to the instructor
7. Be respectful of your classmates, and they will do the same for
you
Brightspace
On Brightspace you will find:
• Course Syllabus - make this your first stop
for questions about the reading
schedule, deadlines and evaluations
• Course calendar, including assignment deadlines
• Lecture slides (made available on the day of the
class)
• Weekly Reading Quizzes
• Notices and announcements
• Assignment information
• Links to online content (YouTube playlists)
• Study guides
• Guides for APA-style assignment formatting,
writing guides and sample assignments
Online Reading Quizzes
• Beginning in Week 2, there will be 10 online
quizzes on the course readings, accessed through
D2L
• The questions on the online reading quizzes will
relate to material to be covered in the next,
upcoming class
• The quizzes are worth 1% each, and are composed of
4 multiple choice questions
• The quizzes will be open from the end of the
previous class to the beginning of the class on the
due date. Quizzes not completed during this
window will not be re-opened, and the
grade will be lost.
• You will have as much time as you need to complete
the quiz, but you cannot log out and log back in -
they must be completed in one sitting.
• The quiz schedule is on the Course Outline
Online Reading Quizzes
DATE TOPIC ASSESSMENT READINGS • The online reading
Week 1 Class
Introduction:
quizzes are on the
Popular required reading for
Culture and
the Materials the coming
of Music
Week 2 A Collision of Reading Quiz Chapters Two and Three
week, not the
Cultures:
European
#1
(Due before class)
material covered in
Imperialism, the previous class.
the Slave
Trade, and the
birth of
• The reading quiz in
Popular Music the Assessment
Week 3 Social Genres: Reading Quiz Chapters Four and Five
Tin Pan Alley, #2 column of the
Race Records, (Due before class)
and Hillbilly syllabus goes with
Music
the reading directly
Week 4 The Jazz Age, Reading Quiz Chapters Six and Seven
The Swing #3 to the right in the
Era, and War (Due before class)
Time
Readings column
Two Listening Identification Tests
• You will be played 10 songs that have been
played in class, drawn from a playlist of 20
that you will have access to in advance to
study
• There will be 3 multiple choice questions to
go with each song, asking you to identify:
1. the name of the artist
2. the name of the song
3. a concept/theme from the course to
which the song is connected
• Refer to the “Web Links” module on D2L for
links to the YouTube playlists for the Midterm
and Final listening tests
Midterm And Final Tests
• The Midterm Test will consist of 70
multiple choice questions and will take
place during regular class time.
Material covered will be Week 1 to
4
• The Final Test will consist of 100
multiple choice questions, and will take
place during the exam period. Material
covered will be from the midterm
onwards only.
Week 10: Listening Analysis Test
• You will be played 10 songs that have not been played in class, but
that are representative of genres/styles we will cover
• There will be 5 multiple choice questions to go with each song
• To prepare for this test, go back through the lecture slides and
review the basic elements of the major styles we have covered from
Week 1 to Week 9. Familiarize yourself with:
1. The sounds and instruments used in each style
2. Representative artists from these styles that were played in class
3. General historical period that each style is from and relevant
social context
4. Technological innovations that led to the creation/production of
each style
5. Musical characteristics that distinguish each style
6. The historical influences on musical styles
7. The basic terms we established in the early lectures to describe
the musical examples throughout the course
• Refer to the outline on D2L for more information, and the YouTube
playlist “MUS 505 Listening Analysis Quiz” for examples of the
genres, artists, and forms in question
Essay Assignment
Length: 1500-2000 words
Evaluation: 30%
Submission: through the assignment module on
Brightspace. Turnitin will be used.
Late penalty: 10% per day late, starting at 11:59 pm on
the due date
Assignment Details: Write a scholarly essay that
addresses the questions and topics outlined below.
Please refer to the writing guides in the “Writing Resources”
folder on Brightspace for examples of how to cite your
sources within the text and in a bibliography, and for
suggestions on basic writing style. The document “Student
Writing Guide” is particularly important, as it offers a model
for proper formatting that you are urged to follow.
The library offers a very useful resource page, which should
be your first stop for tips on how to do a research essay and
how to find peer-reviewed sources: http://
learn.library.ryerson.ca/music
Essay Topic - Rewriting History
• MUS 505 is a historical survey course, in which
students are presented with a constructed
narrative about popular music
• This story is told through the innovations and
biographies of a select group of artists, and like
the history of any subject the selection of important
figures through which to tell the story is subject to
biases.
• In this assignment you are being given the opportunity
to address omissions in this course by selecting an
artist you believe should have been included in
the curriculum but who was not.
• The basic question: when certain genres/eras were
covered in this course, was there an important/
influential artist or group left out of the narrative who
you feel should have been included for a more
accurate/complete representation of the history?
• In other words: If you were teaching this course,
which artists would you chose to feature?
Learning Outcomes
Historical Context
• Introduce: ideas about how music functions in
society, popular culture, genre distinctions, and
the basic material elements of popular music
Genres
• Folk, Art, and Popular music
Key Terms
• Music, hyper-genres, popular culture, the culture
industry, standardization, novelty, standard forms
Musical elements
• Tone, texture, time, timbre, form (strophic,
blues, AABA), meter, call and response,
instruments (acoustic, electric)
What is Music?
• Music requires an organizer (composer/creator)
and an interpreter (audience): both are of equal
importance
• Music results from the interaction between the
materials (sounds/instruments/forms) and the
meanings we attach to these materials
• Music is subject to bias and experience:
unfamiliar sounds can begin in our minds as noise,
and can become “music” as we recognize patterns
• Music used to enforce and maintain certain social
boundaries
• Music is a commodity that is bought and sold
• Music is embedded in function: we understand
music based on how we use it
• Music is connected to tradition (religious, secular,
cultural)
• Music is in a constant process of both change
(innovation) and preservation (old school)
Schemes
Musical of Interpretation
Typologies
• When we experience music, our response to it is based
on internalized categories and learned behaviours, which
Simon Frith calls “schemes of interpretation”
• We build these schemes through our upbringing, our
education, and our experiences as we engage with the
cultural world
• Music in the world can be roughly divided into three
“hyper-genres”:
• Folk
• Art
• Pop
• Within these typologies, our response to music is
shaped by what we perceive the function of the music
to be
• Musics have encoded “rules of behaviour” - what do
I do when I hear these sounds?
Schemes
Musical of Interpretation
Typologies: Hyper-genres
Folk:
• The traditional music of a people or place,
often featuring indigenous instruments and
songs of anonymous authorship.
• Frequently performed by everyday people
rather than professionals, with participation
from the audience in the form of singing along
or dancing.
• Included in cultural events such as religious
celebrations, weddings, social gatherings, and
other occasions
• Folk music often becomes recognized as the
“official sound” of a place, a representation of
the people and the “nation”
• Usually not written down, passed down as
oral tradition. Changes frequently with the
passage of time
Schemes
Musical
Musical Typologies
of Interpretation
Typologies: Hyper-genres
Art:
• Music made for concentrated listening or
contemplation - concert hall or house of worship
• Usually performed by trained, highly skilled specialist
musicians
• Clear separation between audience and performers
• Clear distinction between the music and “every day
life”, for special occasions
• Associated with official religious ceremonies or with
the educated upper class
• Music often composed by a particular person, and
may be notated to be performed in a similar way
each time
• Considered an “intellectual achievement” or
important representation of the skills of a particular
people
MusicalTypologies:
Schemes
Musical Typologies
of Interpretation
Hyper-genres
Pop:
• Music that appeals to, or is most
comprehensible by, the general public
• Generally opposed to art and folk music
• Music that is designed as entertainment,
for listening and dancing
• Produced and interpreted by young
people (or those trying to appeal to
them), rather than upper class/academic
“artists” or the older generation
• Disseminated through the mass media -
radio, TV, internet, print
• Focused on profit generation and
following trends
Popular Culture
• Culture that appeals to, or is most
comprehensible by, the general public, and
that is generally opposed to high culture
and folk culture
• Tied to industrial means of
production, distribution, and
consumption - designed to reach as many
people as possible
• Connected to the mass media - radio,
TV, internet, print
• Produced and interpreted by “the people”,
rather than upper class/academic “artists”.
• Key part of building identity in Western
culture
• Produces both meaning and money
Non-Popular Culture?
Popular Music
• Selected to explore and establish a
sense of identity: “I am/want to
be this kind of person, and this is
the music that shows who I am/
want to be”
• Many different styles/genres, but
very similar forms across genres
• Novelty is important, staying
current with trends, so styles are
constantly evolving
• A leisure time activity
• Often a form of resistance to
the values and attitudes of the
“parent” culture
Mass Media and the Culture Industry
• Culture Industry - the institution or institutions that
create cultural practices and products for sale on a mass
scale.
• Commodification - turning a culture practice into a
“thing” that can be bought and sold (live music into
recordings, for example)
• Standardization - in capitalist society, popular
culture (and, by extension, popular music) is
standardized, using the same formula to appeal to the
masses.
• Example:
• Most popular songs of the last 100 years contain a
verse, chorus and bridge
• Most pop songs are approx. 3.5 minutes long
• Most pop songs are in 4/4 time
• Movies are 90 minutes long, TV shows 44 minutes
• Standardization allows for mass production
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• Time - rhythm
• Timbre - the quality of the sound
• Form - the way the components of the music
are ordered
• Dynamics - how loud or quiet a sound is
Tone
• Tone - a sound from an
instrument, also called a note
• Pitch - the highness or
lowness of a sound
• Key/Tonality - the
collection of pitches that are
used as the framework for a
song. Different songs are in
different keys, and the same
song can be played in
different keys
Tone(s)
• Harmony - multiple pitches played
simultaneously
• Single line melody, with notes
added
• Gospel choir, harmonized backing
vocals
• Chord - A group of notes played
together. May sound pleasant or
unpleasant, played either “broken” or
“solid”
• Chord progression - a series of
chords played in a repeating rhythmic
sequence
Time
• Rhythm - how the sounds and
silences of music are organized in
time
• Pulse rhythm - a regular, repeating
sound that we can perceive as a
consistent beat
• Tempo - the speed at which a piece
is played. Measured in beats per
minute
• 30 BPM
• 60 BPM
• 120 BPM
Time
• Meter - pulse grouped into repeating
patterns by a regular, strong accent on
a beat. Melodies, rhythms, and forms
conform to meter
2 = 1-2, 1-2, 1-2, 1-2
3 = 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3
4 = 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4
5 = 1-2-3-4-5, 1-2-3-4-5, 1-2-3-4-5
6,7,8,9…..
Meter in Pop Music

3/4 4/4

5/4 7/4
Time
• Backbeat - emphasis placed on the 2nd
and 4th beats of a bar (4/4 Time).Very
common in popular music, derived from
African Music, usually played on the snare
drum
• Syncopation - a temporary displacement of
the regular metrical accent in music caused
typically by stressing the weak beat. Creates
rhythmic interest and danceable beats
• Groove - the basic rhythmic framework of
music, the feeling the rhythm generates, the
resulting feeling of all the instruments playing
together
• Different genres have different grooves: hip
hop beats sound different than rock and
country beats
Popular Music terms
• Riff - a catchy, repeated pattern in an instrument
designed to generate rhythmic momentum
• Example Riff: White Stripes, “Seven Nation
Army”
• Hook - a melodic phrase in the vocals that makes
a song memorable and catchy
• Example Hook: Lady Ga Ga, “Bad
Romance”
• Arrangement - the order in which the sections
and instruments of a song are put together.
• Example:
• This song features guitar, drums, bass, and
vocals
• The song goes verse-chorus-verse-chorus-
bridge-chorus
Timbre
• Timbre - tone colour, the quality of a sound as
determined by the relative strength of
harmonics created by a fundamental frequency.
• the elements of an instrument’s construction
that makes it sound different from other
instruments
• All instruments and the human voice have
distinct qualities - timbres - that allow us to
identify them. Example: Janis Joplin and
Faith Hill
• “Clean” vs. “Dirty” guitar sounds
• Words to describe timbre: warm, smooth, rough,
soft, harsh, mellow, bright, deep
Singing Styles
Key terms related to singing
and ornamentation:
1. Melisma (melismatic):
stretching a syllable over
multiple pitches
2. Syllabic: one syllable per
Diva Demo: Melisma note

Syllabic singing
Interactive Elements of Music
• Call and Response: back and forth
alternation between different instruments/
voices
• Example 1 - Buzzard Lope
• Example 2 - James Brown
Ga Ga • Example 3 - The Queen
Musical Materials - Form
• Most musical performances have some kind
of pre-determined structure, an order
in which the sounds take place. These forms
are often standardized, with many different
compositions following the same basic form.
• African-derived dance musics tend to be
cyclical and repetitive to encourage
sustained dancing. Other musics have multi-
sectional forms, where the different
sections might contrast from each other.
• Forms allow composers and their audience
to communicate as they have a shared
understanding of the basic structure of a
piece.
Standard Forms
Cyclical form:
• short, repeating sections
designed to establish a
steady pulse suitable for
dancing or other kind of
trance induction
• Usually feature some
improvisation
• Common in African
musics.
Musical Terms - Tunes
Verse: In popular music, a verse roughly corresponds
to a poetic stanza. When two or more sections of the
song have basically identical music and different lyrics,
each section is considered one verse.
Chorus: A self-contained repeating musical unit with
repeating lyrics, usually incorporates the title of the
song, usually has a fuller texture than other sections.
Often constructed so that it makes the listener want to
sing along with it
Bridge
• A self-contained, distinct musical unit usually
heard once within a song, usually near 2/3 into
the form of the song
• Often moves to a different key
• Usually does not contain the title of the song
Standard Forms
Strophic form: is the term applied to songs in which all verses
or stanzas of the text are sung to the same melody. Strophic songs
often tell a story, and are common in European music
Strophe 1: My baby loves me, I'm so happy
Happy makes me a modern girl
Took my money and bought a TV
TV brings me closer to the world
My whole life
Was like a picture of a sunny day

Strophe 2: My baby loves me, I'm so hungry

Hunger makes me a modern girl
Took my money and bought a donut
The hole's the size of this entire world
My whole life
Looks like a picture of a sunny day
Sleater Kinney - “Modern Girl” Strophe 3: My baby loves me, I'm so angry
Anger makes me a modern girl
Took my money, I couldn't buy nothin'
I'm sick of this brave new world
My whole life
Is like a picture of a sunny day
Standard Forms
Blues Form: African-American characterized by repeating stanzas
of lyrical phrases in the form AAB. The standard form has a line of
text that is repeated twice (A), with a final line ending in a rhyming
couplet (B). The form is repeated multiple times with different lyrics
and frequently improvised instrumental solos.
A:
Bring me champagne when I’m thirsty, bring
me a reefer when I want to get high

A:
Bring me champagne when I’m thirsty, bring
me a reefer when I want to get high

B:
When I’m lonely, bring my woman and sit her
right down by my side
Standard Forms
Tin Pan Alley/Broadway Song:
Standard form developed in the early 20th
century and still in use today. Features
four 8 bar phrases in the form AABA
• A section uses the same melody but
different words
• B section as a contrasting lyric and
melody
Somewhere Over The Rainbow
A1: Somewhere, over the rainbow…
A2: Somewhere, over the rainbow…
B2: Someday I’ll wish upon a star…
A3: Somewhere, over the rainbow…
Standard Forms
Mutli-sectional Pop Song Form: North American pop songs
have evolved since the early 20th century into a form that is now
fully standardized, with the vast majority of hit songs following the
same form, with minor variations in instrumentation, and grooves.
Verse 1
Pre-chorus
Chorus
Verse 2
Pre-chorus
Chorus
Bridge/breakdown
Chorus x2
Instruments of Pop Music
• Wind Instruments
• Woodwinds: sound produced by
blowing into a metal or wooden
tube through a mouth piece with
a vibrating wooden reed.
Examples: saxophone, clarinet
• Brass instruments: sound
produced by buzzing lips on a
mouthpiece and blowing into a
metal tube of various sizes.
Examples: trumpet, trombone
• Common in soul, R&B, funk, and
jazz
Instruments of Pop Music
• Acoustic String
Instruments
• Violin/Fiddle,Viola, Cello -
strings stretched over a hollow
wooden body, played with a
bow
• Double bass - common in jazz,
bluegrass, early rock and roll,
swing. The bass provides
rhythmic foundation,
articulating the harmonic
structure of a song; ie playing
the different notes that indicate
the chorus, bridge.
• Guitar - plays chords, melodies
• Banjo
Instruments of Pop Music

Piano
Instruments of Pop Music
• Electric Instruments
• Electric guitar - can
play much louder than
acoustic, with a wider
range of sounds. Requires
an amplifier
• Electric bass - louder,
more portable than
double bass
• Drums - play the rhythm,
but give sound to it with a
combination of cymbals (high
sound), snare drum (medium
sound), and bass drum.
Instruments of Pop Music
• Synthesizers: creating new
sounds through the manipulation of
sound waves and electric currents
• often have a keyboard interface,
but not always

Synthesizer

Drum Machine
Modern Elements of Music
• Sampling: recording a sound and
adding it to computer for
manipulation
• making new music out of older
recordings
Homework

Reading:
Textbook: Chapters Two and Three

On D2L:
Reading Quiz #1