I am a strong believer in the concept that you often find
resources when you least expect it. This happened to me today as I was starting
to outline what to do for a powerpoint presentation on how pop music can be
used in schools. Haphazardly, I typed "Justin Bieber Music Analysis"
into Google, thinking that there was no possible way to get more poppy. I then
stumbled upon a great resource called
HookTheory. This website takes different pop songs and analyzes them and
there chord progressions, so while you listen to the song it shows what chords
are being played, how they are being inverted, and where the notes are in
relation to these chords.
I believe that using tools like this in the classroom would
be incredibly beneficial to music education as a whole. Whether you scoff at
Taylor Swift and One Direction or secretly listen to them in your dorm, like it
or not if you are placed in a middle school classroom and have to teach them
the value of music, using music that they like will be a way to connect with
them. Sometimes as music students we become "music snobs" and deem
anything that isn't of complex, integral structure to be inconsequential.
However, as a music educator we need to break past those ideas. We must spark
an interest in music in order to get children to wish to continue, and pop
songs have a tendency to do that. Even if you ask your students for their
favorite songs, then analyze them yourself and have half of them sing the song,
and the other half say the chord progression. Any little steps you take to involve students on a personal level will help. I
promise, you won't regret it.
This is so cool! I think integrating popular music is a wonderful thing, especially in general music/music appreciation type classes, but sometimes it can be hard to figure out how exactly one would accomplish that. This is a great resource that I definitely want to look into!
ReplyDeleteExcellent find! I'm always curious as to how certain "pop" songs are written. Everything created nowadays seems so different than older music, but in reality... it all comes down to the same chord progressions.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
Students appeal mostly to this kind of music, so why not teach them about it? This is a perfect site that I never knew about before. We should all consider using this for pedagogical purposes. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteThis is a really fun resource. It would appeal to visual learners, and it would be fun to analyze popular music that the students can relate to. This could be used to lead in to a composing project for more advanced students... you could have them analyze a number of songs, then create their own pop progression based on the patterns they notice in other songs already created. Good find!
ReplyDelete