Pop and Rock by John Covach
Form, Ambition, and Classical Music In the late 1960s and early 1970s, British bands such as Yes,... more Form, Ambition, and Classical Music In the late 1960s and early 1970s, British bands such as Yes, Genesis, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, King Crimson, and Jethro Tull developed a style of rock music that blended popular song with classical music. Though other styles such as jazz and folk were also evoked, the new style was initially referred to as "classical rock" or "art rock" until the label "progressive rock"-or simply "prog"-became standard. Covach (2007) has argued that prog is the 1970s rock style that most thoroughly embraces the "hippie aesthetic," an ambitious musical attitude that not only assimilates classical practices, but also embraces virtuosity, technology, lyrics on "serious" topics, and conceptual approaches to album art and live performance. One consequence of prog's embrace of such aspirational musical values is that recorded tracks became lengthier, exceeding the usual three-minute duration of mid-1960s pop and rock tracks to extend to ten minutes, an entire album side, or even an entire album or double album by the early 1970s (Covach 1997, Macan 1997). Perhaps owing to prog's pronounced association with classical music, analysts have at times explored the use of models such as arch form, cyclic variations, and sonata form to account for the more extended formal designs found in prog (Tamm 1990, Josephson 1992, Macan 1997). Others have adapted formal designs from popular music such as AABA, verse-chorus (Covach 1997, Kawamoto 2006) or "compound form" (see entry). In most cases, the problem of extended form in prog engages some combination of elements drawn from popular song form with the general characteristics of larger structural designs most often associated 18 th-and 19 th-century European classical music.
eds. Investigating Music Performance: Theoretical Models and Intersections (Routledge, 2020), 56-... more eds. Investigating Music Performance: Theoretical Models and Intersections (Routledge, 2020), 56-68. Please note: enlarged versions of the two musical transcriptions presented here are appended to the end of this pdf to facilitate easier reading.
"Analyzing Texture in Rock Music: Stratification, Coordination, Position, and Perspective," in Pop weiter denken: Neue Anstöße aus Jazz Studies, Philosophie, Musiktheorie und Geschichte, Beiträge zur Popularmusikforschung 44, ed. Ralf von Appen and André Doehring (Transcript Verlag, 2018), 53-72.
Writing more than ten years ago, music historian Joseph Horowitz summarized the state of classica... more Writing more than ten years ago, music historian Joseph Horowitz summarized the state of classical music in America as he saw it:
In the United States, the recent twenty years have seen the emergence of what might be defined as... more In the United States, the recent twenty years have seen the emergence of what might be defined as a " flat world " (Thomas L. Friedman) of musical styles – a reshaped cultural environment in which many listeners and scholars no longer view classical music as more sophisticated than other styles. The highbrow/ lowbrow distinction that once made the engagement with classical music a marker of cultural and intellectual superiority has been largely replaced by a sense that any style of music may be interesting and sophisticated in its own ways. The result of this flattening of the hierarchies of musical prestige places the meaning of the term " popular music " in question. This article traces the historical conditions in which the highbrow/lowbrow distinction arose in the United States, how distinctions in musical styles were developed, and how advances in digital technology have hastened the flattening of stylistic hierarchies, rendering the term " popular music " increasingly useless except in a historical sense. In his 2005 bestselling book, The World Is Flat, Thomas L. Friedman posits the idea of an emergent " flat world " created by digital technology and increased globalization. In the United States, the recent twenty years have also seen the emergence of what might be thought of as a flat world of musical styles – a reshaped cultural environment in which many listeners and scholars no longer view classical music as necessarily more sophisticated than other styles. The highbrow/lowbrow distinction that once made the engagement with classical music a marker of cultural and intellectual sophistication (and even superiority) has been largely replaced by a sense that any style of music may be interesting and sophisticated in its own way. The result of this flattening of the hierarchy of musical prestige places the meaning of the term " popular music " in question. Chronically hard to define, " popular music " arose as a label not so much because of what the music was, but more importantly because of what it was not – classical
This video was produced in 2014 as a prototype for the SMT-V series subsequently launched by the ... more This video was produced in 2014 as a prototype for the SMT-V series subsequently launched by the Society of Music Theory. It is a general summary of my ideas on textural stratification.
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Pop and Rock by John Covach