Coming of Age: Teaching and Learning Popular Music in Academia

For the past few decades, the field of music theory has struggled with the question of how well traditional concepts—that is, those that were developed to describe and analyze the music of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms—can be applied to popular music, for example, Beck, Björk, and Beyoncé. For instance, it is somewhat unclear if and how the precepts of classical functional harmony are relevant to rock music. [1] On the one hand, it seems useful to employ existing terminology when talking about new styles, if only because a common language helps us communicate and connect ideas. On the other hand, categorization schemes that were developed within a centuries-old musical practice might be ill-equipped to fully describe music of the modern era. Very often, the perfect balance between these two opposing views is difficult if not impossible to achieve.