Teaching Music with Rock and Rap

The first phase of my textbook research has pretty much gone as far as it needs to go. I may add songs, I may delete others and I will undoubtedly continue to discover more rock and rap songs that are either recommended to me by others, or that I encounter from the wide variety of sources that exists. I'm going to watch the Grammy's this year, something I've never done, and will prepare for that by making sure I've heard all of the nominated songs at least once so I have some context for what I'll observe about who/what gets awards and who has been nominated and so on. Otherwise, awards shows are just glitzy collections of famous or not-so-famous musicians or actors, gathered together dressed to the nines, to see and be seen for the TV cameras and public. With some kind of hyped up modern day Ed Sullivan show to break the monotony of people reading all those little 3x5 cards "And the winner(s) is/are...." Someone needs to come up with a new and more exciting format. How about a living roulette wheel or something? Sometimes it SEEMS like a roulette game.

Back to my text. I am now examining the songs I've chosen for the text more closely and developing ideas for instruction in a general music class (K-8). It's interesting because some songs I've chosen originally for one purpose are turning out to be better suited for another purpose. Example: I thought Michael Jackson's Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough would be a good example of the tritone interval. And of course, it is. But: why would we want to teach the tritone interval in a general music class? High school AP theory, yes. But we don't generally teach aural recognition of intervals in general music class. So I thought: maybe I need to discard this song. Then as I listened to it again, I noticed something else about the song. It is a marvelous and very clear example of polyphonic compositional technique with layered rhythms and so on. That brought me to another idea. What about a series of lessons on texture in music -- homophonic (chords supporting a melody or perhaps a melody harmonized with block chords like the Beach Boys or The Eagles did) or polyphonic (independent melodic lines that create linearly conceived harmony, in contrast with chords that are vertically conceived sonorities). MJ wrote polyphonic music almost exclusively. The Eagles are perfect examples of homophonic texture. Early rock and roll is almost entirely homophonic texture; alternative rock is predominantly polyphonic but switches back and forth a lot.

So at this stage, I'm focusing on the 30 or so rock songs I've selected for the purpose of teaching musical elements. Rap will be in its own chapter with its own history/timeline and essays by rappers on composition, sampling beats, and so on. I may include some information about the fusion of rock and rap in groups such as the Black Eyed Peas and many others. The group from my university (and from Columbia College in Chicago) called Legend Haz It is hip hop fused with alternative rock and jazz. Strong elements of jazz. But with a clearly rock beat and a lead guitar, etc. Somehow they make it work! They've invited me to sit in on their rehearsals (they write their own material) and I'm very excited and happy about that. It doesn't necessitate my traveling anywhere except to campus which is less than 2 miles from my house. And I know the guys quite well although they are not music education majors. But they know I'm a professor here and they are very pleased at my intense interest in them and in their music which I think is AWESOME. So I'm no threat to them and they've agreed to answer questions (at an appropriate time -- I don't want to interrupt their rehearsing. I told them I'd like to be a fly on the wall. They laughed and said it would be great if I were to come and sit in.)

So the materials for the text are pouring in like foods out of a cornucopia. It's very very exciting and the most gratifying project I've EVER undertaken.