Nicole Biamonte, ed., Pop-Culture Pedagogy in the Music Classroom

Matthew Baumer Indiana University of Pennsylvania

Keywords: popular music, rap, turntablism, Guitar Hero, Dance Dance Revolution, American Idol, Youtube, aural skills, Crunk, world music

Abstract

Leaving aside the question of pop music’s place in the college music curricula, this volume of sixteen essays offers practical suggestions for integrating the skills, technologies, and repertories of popular music into the classroom. Several essays focus on aural skills seldom taught in college, such as analyzing a recorded mix, following formal concepts without notation, and beat and pitch matching using turntables. More applicable to music history are essays on teaching critical listening via American Idol, a methodology to help students critically compare cover versions of popular songs, and the culture of Crunk, the Southern rap genre.

Author Biography

Matthew Baumer, Indiana University of Pennsylvania

Matthew Baumer is associate professor of music history at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, where he teaches the music history sequence, graduate courses, and an online introduction to music; he also teaches in the honors college. His research interests include 19th-century program music, Franz Liszt, African American gospel music, and music history pedagogy. He is serving as chair of the Pedagogy Study Group of the American Musicological Society through November, 2011. He received his PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Published

2011-08-20

Issue

Vol 2 No 1: (Fall 2011)

Section

Reviews

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