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Sample questions for self review

If we don’t have time for the two lectures of Dr. Alon Amit this year, but they are available here:

Post-60’s -prog, funk, etc.  jukebox: www.bit.ly/post-60s

Hebrew music over the ages www.bit.ly/isra20s

Why do we give this course?

Why do we give this course?

1.It’s a great opportunity to combine head, heart and hands according to Pestalozzi

2.Together with the students, we go on an expedition for the ‘secret sauce’ that makes some popular songs (perhaps popular everything) survive the sands of time.

3.I get to share my love for popular music, particularly the Great American Songbook.

4. We improve our listening and analytical skills. Together. And talk about life. Together.

5. To quote my late father-in-law, “music is the bread of the soul”.

6. It’s disruptive. In a (hopefully) good way.

After all, music is a reflection of life and teaches us a lot about the world as it was and as it is, and our place in it. It is related to all aspects of our existence. It allows us to combine our thoughts, actions, and behavior.

If we understand what makes a song popular over time, we gain insight on what makes anything popular over time: books, movies, inventions.

And if Prof. Michael Spitzer is right, then we are musical creatures and our insight into music helps us understand ourselves better as human beings.

KEEP IN MIND, THOUGH….The name of the course is perhaps too general. We will talk primarily about popular music in the era between about 1927 to 1980. And although we will mention other sounds and other places, we will concentrate on popular music in North America, the UK, and a bit of Israel. I beg your forgiveness.

We have two HUGE advantages. We are talking about music of very long ago. Those popular songs that are still played, still covered, still loved after so many decades may have ‘something special’ that sets them apart. Immortal jewels, perhaps. And you may not have ever heard many of them, so perhaps you can be even more objective. Or forget objectivity, and just fall in love with them!

How do we give this course?

The course is like an academic show put on by the teachers and the students. We listen to old records. We sing, clap our hands, get up and dance. We learn to fall in love with the music from another era. We discuss hypotheses. We learn the basics of music and lyrics. We talk about individual songs, genres, writers, performers. We look at popular songs as stories.

So what do we talk about in the course?

We start out talking about what makes a popular song stay popular for decades and decades after it was first written. We compare covers and originals, how we define a popular song (national anthem? religious tune?), the parameters that make a popular song immortal. We analyze “Over the Rainbow” which is often considered the best song of the twentieth century and mention”Bohemian Rhapsody” as well.

We talk about the reasons why the course begins in 1927. We look at the songs that won the Oscar (and the ones that didn’t), songs from movies, the special sauce of Disney movie songs,  tv (American Bandstand and Ed Sullivan mainly) and the musicals, focusing on Guys and Dolls (Frank Loesser), The King and I (Rogers and Hammerstein), West Side Story (Leonard Bernstein), and others.

We look at the great songwriters of the golden era, discussing Irving Berlin, Richard Rodgers, the Gershwins, Frank Loesser,  Harold Arlen, Jerome Kern, etc.. We compare singers, e.g., Bing Crosby and Billie Holliday. We talk about the Big Bands of the Swing Era, and why jazz died and was replaced by rock and roll. We talk about the influence of the musical, and of television. We talk about music, melody, surprises, hooks, major vs. minor, chords, scales, we discuss octaves, song structures and chord progressions. We talk about funk, prog, glam, disco and Israeli popular music (we didn’t have time this year, though). We talk about the singer songwriters of the 70s.

There are more than ten, but this is a start…

It’s for you..

First lesson

A wonderful, but still less popular song from the Wizard of Oz

Why our popular music course begins in 1927. Radio. Modern Musicals. First movie with songs. Record players. Important songs – MY HEART STOOD STILL  and BLUE SKIES.

How we can analyze the success of a song –  important! Also has several checklists of what we learned about music. NOTE: I am still working on this one, stay tuned.

Oscar Nominations, thirties and forties, songs from the movies – Important including Walt Disney. Songs: 

A WHOLE NEW WORLD, BEAR NECESSITIES, I WANNA BE LIKE YOU (I’M THE KING OF THE JUNGLE),

Dance moves through the years. Fun to watch. Six step.

Important. Why do we remember Billie and not Bing?

Important.

A (hopefully) welcome addition to the course!

Celebrating the Gershwins and Rhapsody in Blue. Happy 100th! Songs – SUMMERTIME, THEY ALL LAUGHED

Celebrating the opus of ‘course hero’ Richard Rodgers and his lyricists Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II. Important.

Important! Song- VINCENT

Important from page 20 to understand what happened to jazz and why it became less popular, less mainstream.

The comparison between Dick Clark’s American Bandstand and Ed Sullivan’s show is important and the discussion around it.

We go over in class, so yes, please go over. SONG: You’ve Got a Friend

Important, particularly Carole King and Janice Ian. Songs: YOU’VE GOT A FRIEND, AT SEVENTEEN, JUST THE WAY YOU ARE

You have to know that basic blues are twelve bars long, usually three chords and the first two of three lines are repetitive. We mentioned a few songs in the course that are in blues format.

Important

Sample questions for self review

The following pages are for reference only.

Interesting

You can scroll down to see more.

Frank Loesser – short and sweet.

A brief discussion on last year’s course as it progressed

To what extent can popular music be analyzed? Interesting

The importance of pitch melody and phrasing – imporant. Listen to the songs.

Jerome Kern

Irving Berlin – interesting

Interesting and not short

Harold Arlen – interesting, short and sweet

Sholom Secunda – interesting

We dig the greatest Big Bands

interesting

interesting

Old picks of famous more recent musicians – interesting

Fun, the Christmas song (chestnuts roasting on an open fire is important as we interviewed Steve, the son of Mel Torme who co-wrote it.

interesting

very important

And finally…

This is a mini-catalog of several ebooks. Please take a look to find out more about Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, the Gershwins,

Rodgers and Hammerstein, Jerome Kern, Sholom Secunda, Frank Loesser, and Duke Ellington. We talked about Rodgers and Hammerstein and Frank Loesser in particular, just saying.