Pop-Culture Pedagogy in the Music Classroom : Teaching Tools from American Idol to YouTube

Teachers the world over are discovering the importance and benefits of incorporating popular culture into the music classroom. The cultural prevalence and the students' familiarity with recorded music, videos, games, and other increasingly accessible multimedia materials help enliven course content and foster interactive learning and participation. "Pop-Culture Pedagogy in the Music Classroom: Teaching Tools from "American Idol" to YouTube" provides ideas and techniques for teaching music classes using elements of popular culture that resonate with students' everyday lives. From popular songs and genres to covers, mixes, and mashups; from video games such as "Dance Dance Revolution" and "Guitar Hero" to television shows like "American Idol", this exciting collection offers pedagogical models for incorporating pop culture and its associated technologies into a wide variety of music courses. Biamonte has collected well rounded essays that consider a variety of applications. After an introduction, the essays are organized in 3 sections. The first addresses general tools and technology that can be incorporated into almost any music class: sound-mixing techniques and the benefits of using iPods and YouTube. The middle section uses popular songs, video games, or other aspects of pop culture to demonstrate music-theory topics or to develop ear-training and rhythmic skills. The final section examines the musical, lyrical, or visual content in popular songs, genres, or videos as a point of departure for addressing broader issues and contexts. Each chapter contains notes and a bibliography, and two comprehensive appendixes list popular song examples for teaching harmony, melody, and rhythm. Two indexes cross-reference the material by title and by general subject. While written with college and secondary-school teachers in mind, the methods and materials presented here can be adapted to any educational level General tools. Appreciating the mix : teaching music listening skills through sound-mixing techniques / Benjamin Bierman ; Pod-logic : a guide to getting the most out of your iPod in the music classroom / Kathleen Kerstetter ; Global connections via YouTube : Internet video as a teaching and learning tool / Hope Munro Smith Teaching musicianship and music theory. Popular music in the college music theory class : rhythm and meter / Nancy Rosenberg ; Teaching traditional music theory with popular songs : pitch structures / Heather Maclachlan ; Using pop-culture tools to reinforce learning of basic music theory as transformations / James R. Hughes ; On the integration of aural skills and formal analysis through popular music / Keith Salley ; Musical representation in the video games Guitar hero and Rock band / Nicole Biamonte ; DDR at the crossroads : a report on a pilot study to integrate music video game technology into the aural skills classroom / Brent Auerbach, Bret Aarden, and Mathonwy Bostock ; Turntablism : a vehicle for connecting community and school music making and learning / Karen Snell Teaching music analysis and criticism. Using American idol to introduce music criticism / James A. Grymes / An analytic model for examining cover songs and their sources / Victoria Malawey ; Cotextuality in music video : covering and sampling in the cover art video of "Umbrella" / Lori Burns, Tamar Dubuc, and Marc Lafrance ; Vocal practices and constructions of identity in rap : a case study of Young Jeezy's "Soul survivor" / Alyssa Woods ; Crunkology : teaching the southern hip-hop aesthetic / Ali Colleen Neff ; Mashup poetics as pedagogical practice / Wayne Marshall. Teachers the world over are discovering the importance and benefits of incorporating popular culture into the music classroom. The cultural prevalence and the students' familiarity with recorded music, videos, games, and other increasingly accessible multimedia materials help enliven course content and foster interactive learning and participation. Pop-Culture Pedagogy in the Music Classroom: Teaching Tools from American Idol to YouTube provides ideas and techniques for teaching music classes using elements of popular culture that resonate with students' everyday lives. From popular songs and genres to covers, mixes, and mashups; from video games such as Dance Dance Revolution and Guitar Hero to television shows like American Idol, this exciting collection offers pedagogical models for incorporating pop culture and its associated technologies into a wide variety of music courses. Nicole Biamonte has collected essays that consider a variety of applications. The first Section addresses such general tools as sound mixing, iPods, and YouTube, as well as technology that can be incorporated into almost any music class. The next Section uses pop culture to demonstrate music-theory topics and develop ear-training and rhythmic skills. The final Section examines the musical, lyrical, or visual content in popular songs, genres, or videos to address broader issues and contexts. Although written with college and secondary-school teachers in mind, the methods and materials presented here can be adapted to any educational level [Publisher description]. This essay collection provides a variety of ideas and techniques for teaching music classes using elements of popular culture, such as popular songs and genres, mixes and remixes, video games, music videos, television shows, and internet resources. Each chapter offers a pedagogical model for incorporating these powerful tools to encourage student interaction in courses on musicianship, music theory, analysis, criticism, music history, and related classes.