Rock Narratives and Teaching Popular Music: Audiences and Critical Issues

  • Andrew Flory Carleton College
Keywords: popular music, rock music, music appreciation, textbooks, world music, amateur culture, performance practice

Abstract

This essay is a response to David Blake’s “Between a Rock and a Popular Music Survey Course: Technological Frames and Historical Narratives iin Rock Music.†Engaging Blake’s view of rock history as a problemtatic dominant discourse in popular music teaching, I discuss my view of the relationship between “rock†and “popular†music, the role of texbooks in maintaining or furthering pedagogical topics, and different audiences for popular music courses in modern university and college teaching. I then reflect on the manner in which I incorporate critical viewpoints into my teaching, and make several observations concerning narratives widely accepted in popular music teaching.

Author Biography

Andrew Flory, Carleton College

Andrew Flory teaches courses in American music at Carleton College, focusing on rock, rhythm and blues, and jazz. He has written extensively about American rhythm and blues, and is an expert on the music of Motown. His book, I Hear a Symphony: Listening to the Music of Motown, is forthcoming from The University of Michigan Press. Working directly with Universal Records, Andrew has served as consultant for several recent Motown reissues. He is also co-author of the history of rock textbook What’s that Sound? (W. W. Norton).

Published
2014-07-12
Issue
Vol 5 No 1: (Fall 2014)
Section
Roundtable

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