TEACHING MUSICAL CONCEPTS THROUGH POPULAR MUSIC WITH TECHNOLOGY Ryan Van Bibber INTRODUCTION Nearly every student I have ever taught has had at least one thing in common--they engage with popular music daily, sometimes in deep and profound ways. So, it is a natural choice for me to use popular music as my primary teaching vehicle. In this article, I will show some of the ways I use popular music and technology to teach fundamental musical concepts, including form, rhythm, melody, and timbre. The illustrations come from Ableton Live, a digital audio workstation (DAW). However, the examples presented would work with any DAW.
FORM Popular songs are a rich entry point for teaching about musical form. I start by asking students to name common sections of a song. They usually come up with verse, chorus, intro, and sometimes bridge. I will then add pre-chorus, post-chorus, outro, or any sections they did not think about already. We discuss the characteristics of each section: the verse tells the story, the chorus summarizes the main idea and emotion of the song, the bridge is the different part that leads back to the chorus, etc. I load songs into a DAW, and the students can see the musical form written in the waveforms. We listen and identify the sections of the song together by ear. Then I label those sections on the track in the DAW.
Formal Analysis of “Shake It Off” by Taylor Swift APRIL/MAY 2021 | 29
