Bowman, Pop Music, 1

Pop Goes. . .? Taking Popular Music Seriously

Wayne D. Bowman
Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong.
John Dryden
You know something is happening here,
but you don't know what it is do you, Mister Jones?
Bob Dylan
The gap between on!entional musi urriula in "orth #merian shools and the
musial praties in whih most people engage in e!eryday life is enormous, and it is
growing wider at a breathtaking rate. This point is illustrated onisely and pro!oati!ely
by $aniel %a!ihi, who writes&
' would think it safe to say that the steadfast shool musi rituals of singing folk
songs in unison, learning musi notation, and playing an instrument in a marhing
band are (uite remo!ed from most students) musial li!es, not only in terms of
genre and style but also in terms of defining what *musi) is supposed to be about.
'f outside of shool a student)s musial life mainly onsists of trading M+, files
of obsure emo and grunge songs on his omputer or daning with friends at an
all-ages lub, then a musi lass where he studies how to play the larinet is going
to seem inredibly bi.arre.
/
This 0disonnet1 between the e2perienes that typify students) shool-based
musial ati!ities and their out-of-shool musial li!es is no minor uriosity, no idle or
passing onern. 't is, if ritis like %a!ihi are to be belie!ed, part of a broader trend
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with far-reahing and profoundly troubling onse(uenes. 3ormal, institutionali.ed musi
studies and atual musial praties ha!e, %a!ihi asserts, 0parted ways.1
The musi eduation ommunity)s inreasing obsession with ad!oay is, '
belie!e, a lear refletion of this trend, as more and more resoures 4both finanial and
imaginati!e5 beome neessary to 6ustify instrutional praties whose meaning and
rele!ane is apparent neither to those for whom they are intended nor to those who
pro!ide finanial support. #t the same time, ironially, people)s belief in the !alue of
musi is as e!ident as e!er. Musi oupies !ast amounts of people)s time and
e2pendable inome, and plays a onstituti!e role in !ast ranges of daily ati!ity. %learly,
something is amiss in the way we onei!e of and engage in musi eduation7 for where
people find meaning and !alue in what they do, there is seldom a need to on!ine them
of the importane of beoming more profiient or knowledgeable about it.
8ne strategi response to this legitimation risis is to endea!or to make shool
musi more rele!ant to students) li!es by replaing old or anahronisti musial ontent
with musi belie!ed to ha!e greater urreny. 9owe!er, this strategy is not nearly as
straightforward as it may seem. 8n the one hand, it must be weighed against the
important eduational aim of enhaning aess to the less ommon, less aessible, and
therefore less 0rele!ant.1 8n the other, it is neessary to ask whether the fators that make
for rele!ane are ompatible with or apable of sur!i!al in the onte2t of formal
shooling.
The ase of 6a.. is illustrati!e. The inorporation of 6a.. into the shool musi
urriulum was moti!ated at least in part by onerns about rele!ane and urreny. :ut
it is important to note that 6a.. beame *safe,) *respetable,) and *legitimate) musial
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ontent for shool study only as its ommerial !iability and popularity in the broader
soial realm waned. 't is also noteworthy that the kind of 6a.. praties that e!entually
gained suffiient legitimay to warrant bona fide musial and eduational status beame,
in that proess, shool 6a... 'ts reognition of the legitimay of 6a.. notwithstanding,
institutionali.ed musi eduation was able to aommodate relati!ely few of the
di!ergent soiomusial priorities presented by 6a.. priorities like indi!iduality,
independene, inno!ation, nononformity, and reati!ity. :eause adding 6a.. to the
urriulum did little to transform the way musi eduators oneptuali.ed musi, or
urriulum, or the nature of eduation, 6a.. praties paid a steep prie for admission to
the aademy.
The signifiane of these obser!ations for our interest in popular musi is
twofold. 3irst, the inertia of shool musi and the institutions it ser!es is a fore that must
not be underestimated. Seond, and as a onse(uene, popular musi annot impro!e or
re!itali.e the urriulum without radially reforming the way it is onei!ed. +ut
differently, the introdution of popular musi into the urriulum will hange little unless
we e2amine e2pliitly its impliations for how and why we do what we do -- unless we
take ad!antage of the opportunity to re-theori.e our instrutional and eduational
praties. #n eduational program that attempts to inorporate popular musi without
addressing its powerful ultural resonanes and ontraditions -- without situating it
amidst issues of struggle, resistane, defiane, identity, power, and ontrol -- is an
eduational program that seeks to use popular musi to safe, pre-ordained ends, ignoring
the !ery things that aount for its popularity in the first plae. 'f our intent in adding
popular musi studies to the urriulum is to maintain 0what is,1 or to enable us simply to
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keep doing what we already do -- to simply 0add *the popular) and stir1 -- we would
probably do well to forego the effort. 8ur interest in popularity and things popular should
not re!ol!e around the maintenane of the e2isting system. ;ather, we should use it to re-
open possibilities for ritial and reati!e thought and ation, both in our students and in
oursel!es. The issues attending the inorporation of popular musi studies into the shool
urriulum are both e2tensi!e and omple2, and in!ol!e onerns at the !ery heart of
musi eduation and urriulum theory. They offer an e2eptional opportunity to open up
dialogue on the ways musi eduation might need to hange if popular musi were to
beome paramount among the things we deem worthy of teahing and learning. <e need,
in other words, to e2amine that into whih we would inorporate these popular
phenomena to help make unfamiliar our o!er-familiar world of musi eduation. To that
end, taking popular musi seriously is a stane rih in transformati!e potential for "orth
#merian musi eduation.
=et me identify at the outset se!eral of the assumptions and on!itions that frame
this essay. 3irst, ' belie!e that the problems reated by e2luding popular musi far
outweigh the perei!ed perils of inluding it. Seond, ' belie!e that "orth #merian
musi eduation must and e!entually will 4whether of hoie or neessity5 find ways to
inorporate popular musi studies meaningfully into its publi shool and uni!ersity
urriula. Third, ' do not belie!e that this an be ahie!ed without ma6or, perhaps e!en
radial, reoneptuali.ations of what musi is, and what musi eduation means 4how it
is best done, by whom, for whom, to what ends5. 3ourth, these reoneptuali.ation do not
4and must not5 mean that 0serious1 or 0lassial1 musi studies will be eliminated. This
suggests that, fifth, it is imperati!e we de!elop instrutional frameworks and teaher
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ompetenies that aommodate both musis at one.
>
These onerns point olleti!ely
to a need for lose interrogation and philosophial analysis of the taken-for-granted
beliefs and !alues that undergird urrent eduational pratie in musi.
Whence Popularity?
=et us begin at the beginning, beause we ought to agree what we are talking
about. <hat might be meant by the phrase popular musi, and what is it about popularity
that interests 4or ought to interest5 us? The diffiulties begin here. The ad6eti!e
0popular1 has many, many meanings -- some of them ontraditory, some of them
inompatible with the aims and nature of eduation, and many of them more impliit than
e2pliit. +opular musi)s meaning is a (uestion, as one sholar puts it, 0riddled with
omple2ities.1
,
The most faile answer is, as usual, not !ery helpful& popular musi is that whih
is not unpopular.
?
"ot only is this annoyingly irular, it points us in the diretion of
statistial rather than musial or eduational issues.
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9ow e2tensi!e or per!asi!e or
en6oyable must a musial pratie be in order to warrant eduational inlusion on the
basis of its popularity? The limited statistial perspeti!e replaes (uestions of musial
!alue with onerns about the e2tent to whih musi is programmed, purhased or
onsumed& an approah made familiar by the top-forty hit parade.
A
't replaes (ualitati!e
onerns with (uantitati!e ones. 8ne might argue that the most popular 4i.e., the most
statistially per!asi!e5 should be represented proportionally in the urriulum, and the
least popular should reei!e minimal attention. :ut that flies in the fae of the idea of
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eduation as an endea!or intended to introdue people to the less per!asi!e, the
unommon, the rare and the preious. 't also fails to aknowledge that many broadly
popular things do not appeal to a homogenous mass of people for reasons they all share,
but rather ahie!e their popularity by onneting with di!erse and di!ergent subgroups
for different, e!en ontraditory reasons.
# more re!ealing way to proeed is by asking to what the term 0popular1 stands
as Oher in general usage what the term is presumed to e2lude and, onse(uently,
what we mean impliitly when we designate musi popular. The list in Table / helps
demonstrate the magnitude and omple2ity of this definition problem.

Ta!le ". De#ining the popular

The Popular is Other to . . . $n% there#ore Is & . . .
The elite, rare $own to earth
The speial, e2eptional B!eryday, mundane, ommon
The pretentious and haughty ;eal, authenti, honest
The elegant +rosai
The lassial, 0lassy1 Cn-lassy, unouth
The aristorati, for 0the few1 $emorati, of 0the people1
The selet #essible
The omple2 Simple
The restrained, refined 'ndulgent, rass
The mindful Diseral
The erebral and somber Dital, fun
The respetful, polite $efiant, irre!erent, rude, unruly
The serious, profound %apriious, tri!ial, lightweight, trite
The stuffy, dull, dying or dead Dital, li!ing, energeti
The intrinsially !aluable %ommerial, of primarily e2trinsi !alue
The ob6eti!e or absolute Sub6eti!e, funtional, soial, politial
The formally autonomous Soially-determined
The intelletual 9uman, real
The hallenging, demanding :anal, pre-digested
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The genuine, authenti 3raudulent, fake
The time-tested and -!alidated Transient, fleeting
The museum The street
The transendent <orldly
The ontemplati!e Bntertaining, di!ersionary
The appreiated +artiipatory
The e2pressi!e and !ital 3ormulai, trite dulling
The aoustially produed Bletronially-mediated
The formal, alulated 'nformal, asual
The sophistiated, ele!ated Dernaular, e!eryday
The premeditated, planned Spontaneous, unrestrained
:road and rihly !arious "arrow
E
The learn-ed Soiali.ed, absorbed
The ontrolled, orderly 8ut of ontrol
The high =ow
The musial +re-musial, submusial, e2tramusial
That with suffiient ohesion, integrity, ;esidue, someone else)s musi
F
G interest to ha!e a name of its own
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Bah of the ontrasts listed in Table / is deeply flawed. %olleti!ely, they not only
distort our understanding of popular and lassial musi, they per!ert our understanding
of the entire musial field. Yet at the same time there is in eah ontrast, from some
strongly held perspeti!e, a degree of !alidity. Bah represents a way people 4musi
eduators among them5 tend to talk about and onei!e of popularity. 'n light of the
liberal mi2 of laudatory and ondemnatory ideas, it should be e!ident that popularity
means many things to many people -- not a !ery sanguine situation for a profession
potentially interested in embraing musi that is popular or in endorsing musi for its
popularity.
<hat ontrasts like these share more fundamentally and disturbingly is their
dualism-- their redution of potentially useful distintions to dihotomous differenes.
Bowman, Pop Music, "
Most ritiism and praise of popular musi is, ' belie!e, impliated in one or more of
these dihotomous systems of thought systems rooted in omfortable, une2amined
assumptions that what popularity means is perfetly lear, and that its nature is (uite
different from 0the rest1 of musi 4whate!er 0the rest1 means5. The real hallenge for
musi eduation, then, lies in learning to deonstrut these binaries, in ways that breathe
life into the supposedly moribund lassis while at the same time reogni.ing the
eduational integrity of the popular and in the proess, showing the ontinuity and unity
of all human musial endea!or.
The most realitrant and misleading myths about popular art and musi stem
from ertain biases of philosophial idealism, biases ;ihard Shusterman aptly alls
0aseti.1
I
These aseti biases beome manifest in three near-phobi a!ersions ' like to
designate 0plethorophobia1 4a!ersion to multipliity5, 0temporophobia1 4an2iety about
temporal transiene and hange5, and 0somatophobia1 4fear of the body5. "ot
oinidentally, musi that is popular often manifests multipliity, transiene, and
orporeality in abundane.
Thus, popular musi affords pleasures that are often onsidered heap, (uik, or
easy 4unlike the 0deferred gratifiation1
/J
supposedly assoiated with genuinely artisti
musi5. 'ts gratifiations are spurious, or fraudulent the musial e(ui!alent of 6unk food
or self-gratifiation. 't titillates the body rather than nourishing the mind. 'ts effets are
superfiial and fleeting, not durable7 sub6eti!e rather than ob6eti!e. +opular musi is
reated for passi!e onsumption and is bereft of intelletual effort and reward. 't is
boringly simple, banal, and predigested, so as to relie!e the listener of any real effort or
responsibility. 't aters more to sensation than to ognition. 'ts produts are not reati!e
Bowman, Pop Music, #
or original, but trendy and deri!ati!e. They enter into and fall out of fashion rather than
standing the test of time. +opular musi is musi of the herd -- musi that numbs
indi!idual and ritial awareness. 't all sounds the same& formulai, prediable, rhythmi,
and ob!ious. 't is designed to pander to the lowest ommon denominator of human taste.
The most ogent and on!ining ad!oate of suh !iews is Theodore #dorno,
who was probably right in many aspets of his argument. 9e was wrong, howe!er, in one
of his most fundamental assumptions& that popular musi is all of one loth, hopelessly
enmeshed with a 0ulture industry1 whose influene renders it inapable of ritial
resistane, ogniti!e substane, or hallenge. Still, any attempt to mount a balaned
understanding of popular musi must proeed through #dorno)s arguments7 they annot
be bypassed.
//
#gain, the hief failing of these arguments is their failure to aknowledge not all
popular musi is idential. +opular musi is not an 0it1 but a 0them1 a !ast,
multifarious, and fluid range of musial praties with remarkably different and di!ergent
intentions, !alues, potentials, and affordanes. Muh of it speaks to the body, or more
properly, the inorporated 4embodied5 mind7 but there is nothing inherently heap,
substandard, or seond-lass in that. Muh of it is aessible, and en6oyable without
ma6or intelletual effort, but there is no reason signifiane must be diffiult, nor is the
intellet the primary determinant of musial worth. Muh of it is trite, banal, and insipid,
but it is not inherently or in!ariably so. 't aters to large audienes, but these are by no
means uniform. 'ts ommodity harater its ommerial side -- is an important part of
what it is, but that by no means e2hausts its appeal or its semioti potential. <hat we get
Bowman, Pop Music, 1$
from the one-sided !iews of musi represented in Table / are grossly distorted !iews of
musi.
Bowman, Pop Music, 11
So& What Is Popular Music?
<e ha!e disounted the utility of the statistial approah to defining popularity.
<e ha!e also obser!ed that our ommon disursi!e uses of the term 0popular1 point to a
deeply ideologial field with ontested and ontraditory parameters. <e ha!e suggested
as well that many dismissals of the popular follow from the prudishness of philosophial
idealism and its worries o!er the trustworthiness of things bodily, multitudinous, or
transient. This leads us to the further (uestion of whether popular musi may be best
understood along lines of soial lass, a !iew with its substantial share of adherents both
among soiologists and musiians.
The list of impliit meanings ad!aned in the pre!ious setion of this essay makes
e!ident two opposing lass-based !iews of popular musi, one from 0abo!e1 and one
from 0below.1
/>
:oth !iews are rooted in essentialism the naK!e and seriously mistaken
belief that popularity is the kind of thing that has an 0essene1 and that this essene an
be traed more or less along soial lass lines. The !iew from abo!e is that popular musi
is a mass, standardi.ed, ommerial phenomenon, shaped and defined by the
manipulati!e interests of a apitalist ulture industry. Seen from below, popular musi is
the musi of 0real people1 authenti, grounded, !ital, and onneted to day-to-day
human e2istene. 3rom the first perspeti!e, popularity threatens to replae superior
musi that is, for !ariously !alid reasons, inherently unpopular7 from the latter, the elitism
of art musi poses a threat to the musi of ommon folk. :oth perspeti!es err in their
assumption that popularity has a stable essene -- whether, as Middleton puts it, 0the
people1 is regarded as 0an ati!e, progressi!e historial sub6et or a manipulated
dupeL1
/,
The trouble with essentialist !iews of popularity is that they attempt to
Bowman, Pop Music, 12
disentangle what is by its !ery nature entangled, to make onrete what is fluid and
immaterial, to unify what is di!erse and ontraditory.
'n opposition to essentialist !iews, Middleton takes the stane that popular musi
0an only be !iewed within the onte2t of the whole musical %ield, in whih it has an
ati!e tendeny7 and this field, together with its internal relationships, is ne!er still it is
always in mo&emen.1
/?
<hat this phrase 0popular musi1 does, then, is attempt to 0put a
finger on that spae, that terrain, of ontradition between *imposed) and *authenti,)
*elite) and *ommon,) predominant and subordinate, then and now, theirs and ours, and so
on and to organi.e it in partiular ways.1
/@
%learly, this is a pro6et replete with
ideologial ramifiations.
The musial field to whih Middleton refers is the field Meil and 3eld harateri.e
as 0ulture1 fermenting, 0morphing,1 bubbling as opposed to the domain of
0i!ili.ation,1 in whih most suh ati!ity has subsided, or spent itself.
/A
The field of
popular musi is, in other words, ontinuous with the whole field of musial ageny and
ation7 it is always ontested, ne!er stable, and e!er and una!oidably politial.
/E
There are
no pure or stable ultures, let alone ultures that an be segregated hierarhially so that
the terms high and low desribe aurately people)s in!ol!ements and engagements.
'ndi!iduals and groups ha!e multiple and fluid sub6eti!ities, identities, and affinities that
may be simultaneously or alternati!ely 0high1 and 0low,1 abo!e or below as
irumstanes and propensities warrant.
So where does this lea!e us in our (uest for a definition? 'ihou one, if we
e2pet something handy-dandy, neat, and definiti!e. The only definition that seems
defensible is one that is open, pro!isional, and sub6et to re!ision -- one that foregoes the
Bowman, Pop Music, 13
idealist)s yearning for the eternal, e2hausti!e, and final. This does not negate the
possibility of definition, but it does render untenable the idea that popular musi and all
its assoiated !alues and pleasures an be aounted for in some simple, timeless,
monolithi way. +opular musi is, as Middleton shows, a field whose area is e2tensi!e
and whose inner struture is highly omple2.
#ll this said, it might be argued, we know what popularity means, e!en if that
meaning is fluid, !arious, and ontested. <e know more or less what sort of praties we
speak of when we talk about popular musi, e!en if we are sometimes unable to agree
whether a partiular pratie warrants the label. =et us ask, then, how popular musi
tends to be harateri.ed.
't tends, at least in this age of late apitalism and tehnology, to be mass(
mediaed.
/F
'ts commodiy characer is an important part of what it is, a prominent soure
of what makes its popularity possible. 't tends as well to be designed or intended for a
broad audience, howe!er onstituted, an audiene often wihou %ormal rainin) or the
kind of tehnial understanding musiians all musiianship. 'ts audiene is omprised
e2tensi!ely of amaeurs -- those whose interest stems not from professional in!ol!ement
but more simply and diretly from lo!e 4amateur deri!es from the =atin, amare5 of the
musi at hand. =ikewise, its pratitioners tend to be less formally shooled, and inlined
to learn and transmit their raft aurally,
/I
if enhaned by reorded media. +opular musi
is, to this e2tent, musi reated by, and espeially for, the en6oyment and enrihment of
e&eryday people in their e&eryday li&es.
:y these riteria, 0lassial1 musi and 6a.. one were, but no longer are, popular.
Their pratie has beome highly speiali.ed, reliant upon formal training, and aimed
Bowman, Pop Music, 14
e2tensi!ely at fellow-pratitioners although ob!iously, this does not prelude
en6oyment and use by others, espeially those with the benefit of some kind of formal
tuition or other means of indution into the norms of the pratie.
Thus another ommon tendeny of musi we tend to regard as popular& its relati!e
in%ormaliy, and its seeming indifferene to onerns like stylisti purity or authentiity.
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+opular musi tends to be musi that is not intended to transend time, plae, and
irumstane7 it is more a musi of and for the here and now * though in today)s
mediated world 0here1 an range from the loal to the global. This is not to say that
ertain of its produts may not e!entually ahie!e the kind of ongoing ultural resonane
that transforms them into ultural ions of sorts, but their origins 4preisely like muh
musi that has subse(uently attained 0artisti1 status5 are more pra)maic, more
onerned with use than transendental status. +opular musi is used music. 4That
nonpopular or artistially ele!ated musis are also 0used1 albeit for purposes less
immediately ob!ious is both further e!idene of the need for ontingent definitions and
of the depth of the ideologial roots of these issues.5 :eause of its pragmati orientation,
stylisti modulation, mutation, and hybridity are regular features& popular musis tend to
approah the musial field as a plae for play and e+perimenaion more often than as the
ground for the reation of works.
#n important orollary of these tendenies is popular musi)s linkage to
embodied or corporeal e2periene.
>/
+opular musi is not generally or primarily intended
for erebral or ontemplati!e pereption. 't often emphasi.es rhythm, timbre, !olume,
and other attributes that align themsel!es with proess, gesture, and *feel.) ;ather than
re!ol!ing around syntatial and hierarhial strutural onerns or the ogniti!ely
Bowman, Pop Music, 15
mediated antiipationsNe2petations with whih these are assoiated,
>>
popular musi
tends to speak to the body or to appeal to a bodily mode of engagement that demands
familiarity but not formal tuition.
>,

The 0definition1 ' ha!e been relutantly de!eloping in this setion
>?
thus inludes
the following tendenies& 4a5 breadth of intended appeal, 4b5 mass-mediation and
ommodity harater, 45 amateur engagement, 4d5 ontinuity with e!eryday onerns, 4e5
informality, 4f5 here-and-now pragmati use and utility, 4g5 appeal to embodied
e2periene, and 4h5 proessual emphasis.
8ne final matter demands our onsideration before we mo!e on& the fat that
popular musi in today)s world seems by and large to mean youth musi. The (uestion of
whether this is funtion of 0the musi1 or of the way it is marketed and the disposable
inome of young people is a re!ealing one, beause the diffiulty in answering it points to
the ine2triable links between popularity and apitalist systems of prodution and
distribution. The popularity of musi is a funtion of the reation of onsumer demand, a
fator that has no inherent onnetion to the !alue of the musi itself. +eople like what
they know and are gi!en, rather than knowing what they like. 'n light of this, we would
probably do well to draw a distintion between 0pop1 musi and musi that is popular in
the more broadly demorati sense. 0+op1 is more purely ommodity musi, designed
foremost with market in mind. <hether the more demorati sense of popularity e!en
remains a possibility in the age of ommodity apitalism is !ery muh an open (uestion.
The 0punk1 mo!ement, for e2ample, has raised in partiularly aute form the (uestion
0whether, in a apitalist soiety, a really popular musi is in fat possible.1
>@
Bowman, Pop Music, 16
8n loser refletion, then, theses last matters -- these after-thoughts about youth,
onsumerism, ommodity e2hange, and the industrial reation of taste -- are not
inidental 0asides1 at all. They are among the most important attributes of popular musi
as onstituted in our postmodern, late apitalisti world. #nd they bring to the fore one
more the eonomi and ideologial underpinnings of popular ulture reminding us that
popularity is ne!er straight ahead, ne!er as ob!ious as it seems, ne!er 0popular1 in the
one-dimensional sense ad!oates and detrators would ha!e us belie!e.
$espite my best efforts at definition, then, the only defensible answer to the
(uestion used to frame this setion 4<hat is popular musi?5 is, 0That dependsO1
0+opular musi1 is like 0art17 it does not and annot mean any one thing, or e!en any
single ombination of things. Terms like these are tools7 what they mean depends on who
is using them and to what ends. Their meaning annot be settled one and for all and will
always be ontested. 4' hope, therefore, that readers ha!e found signifiant
ountere2amples to eah of the omponents in my ompound 0definition.15 +opular
musi is not ommodity or mass musi for those who most are about and are most
intimately in!ol!ed with it,
>A
nor is it always 0youth1 musi, nor is it in!ariably
onneted to e!eryday onerns, and so on. +opular musi)s status is e!er unsettled and
ontested, and indeed, these may be its most salient harateristis. They are, at the same
time, among the greatest hallenges to those who would make it an integral part of musi
eduation.
'%ucation an% the Popular
#dding eduation to the popular musi e(uation e2pands e2ponentially the
omple2ity and ontraditions the musi eduation profession must onsider. Thus far,
Bowman, Pop Music, 1!
we ha!e been onerned with identifying what popular musi 0is1 4or 0isn)t15, beause
suh determinations onstitute an important preliminary step in the seletion of urriular
ontent. $efinition pro!ides us with a basis for indiating what to inorporate and
e2lude. Yet in this ase, it is arguable that what we ha!e identified signifiantly
hallenges and sub!erts musi eduation itself at least as it on!entionally understood
and pratied. This leads ine2orably to politial (uestions about the desirability or
neessity of professional hange, (uestions the remainder of this essay will endea!or to
e2plore.
# serious and thoughtful ommitment to popular musi in musi eduation would
hange a great many things, urriular ontent by no means the least of them. 'f popular
musi)s meaning and identity are fundamentally unsettled, a musi eduation profession
that takes suh musi seriously an sarely e!ade unsettledness itself. 's musi eduation
more onerned with ultural preser!ation or with ultural transformation? To what
e2tent are ultural !alues and ideologial struggles appropriately addressed within
musial eduation? Should musi eduation onern itself with what is, or is it more
properly onerned with what could be? %an eduational institutions study without
distortion musial praties that are often rebellious, oarse, !ulgar, and deliberately
offensi!e? %an musial praties in whih indi!iduality, reati!ity, and hange figure so
prominently be aommodated in shools that are on many le!els de!oted to preisely the
opposite ends? B!en if we agree to some stipulati!e definition of popularity and presume
thereby to ha!e resol!ed the urriular (uestion of what kind of musi is appropriate and
desirable for instrutional purposes, it remains for us to deide suh matters as whose
Bowman, Pop Music, 1"
musi, for whom, and to what ends and to 6udge whether shools lend themsel!es
satisfatorily to suh things.
The fat that something is popular pro!ides us with no lear reason for teahing
it,
>E
espeially if the nature of popularity entails alters radially what instrution might
entail unless, of ourse, urrent instrutional praties are learly inade(uate and in
need of alteration. ' stated at the outset that popular musi might ha!e little effet on
musi eduation unless we embrae it as an opportunity to think arefully and ritially
about how and why we do what we do. 'f the arguments ' ha!e ad!aned subse(uently
ha!e merit, suh thought appears an una!oidable outome of endorsing popular musi.
=et us reflet briefly on the aims of shooling, (ualifying what we say with the
reognition that suh ends are, like the meaning of popular musi, !arious and ontested.
4'n this interesting way, popular musi and eduation might be ideally ompatibleO5 <hat
are the eduational ends of shooling by whih we might be able to assess the desirability
of inorporating popular musi into the urriulum?
3irst, eduation is onerned with the de!elopment of skills, understandings, and
dispositions that do not follow easily or naturally from the soiali.ation proess alone.
3or most young people, howe!er, popular musi plays a ma6or role in that soiali.ation
proess, whih suggests a kind of o!er-familiarity with the sub6et among those to whom
we would teah it 4and perhaps an ine!itable under-familiarity among those responsible
for instrution5. The (uestion, then, is what teahing, learning about, and engaging in
popular musi an ahie!e that is eduational, not already aomplished informally, and
yet desired by soiety at large. So long as we onfine our attention to musial praties
that are not widespread and that do not flourish unassisted in soiety, the ase for musi
Bowman, Pop Music, 1#
eduation seems fairly lear. 4This is not to say it is persuasi!e, only that a genuinely
eduational need appears to ha!e been ad!aned.5 :ut when we turn our attention to
something that is thri!ing without eduational inter!entions, our understandings and
6ustifiations for what we are doing must hange.
Seond, eduation is onerned with de!eloping and transmitting skills,
understandings, and dispositions that are deemed important by soiety. Though ob!ious,
this annot go without saying, sine informal soiali.ation fails to transmit many things
that nonetheless do not warrant the alloation of sare eduational resoures. ;esoures
are alloated for the protetion or preser!ation of ma6or human aomplishments and the
transmission of indispensable soial !alues.
#lthough situating popular musi among ahie!ements deemed worthy of
eduational transmission be ontro!ersial, popular musi)s rele!ane to soial !alues is
less so again, depending upon what !alues one has in mind. #mong the soial !alues
deemed indispensable in <estern demoraies are those that prepare an informed
iti.enry for demorati partiipation by broadening hori.ons, de!eloping more
pluralisti !alues, and the like. # third eduational aim, then, in!ol!es preparing students
for life by gi!ing them skills that will ser!e them well. Signifiant among these in
apitalisti demoraies are suh attributes as empowerment, independene, self reliane,
ritial skills, and the inlination to use them. +opular musi)s ultural signifiane and
its ideologially ontested nature may be well suited to ends like these, pro!ided that
instrution atually addresses them rather than a!oiding them or sweeping them under the
rug. 3rom this perspeti!e it might well be argued that popularity raises omple2
(uestions e2atly where they need to be raised partiularly in light of musi eduation)s
Bowman, Pop Music, 2$
historial propensity for tehnial training rather than eduation in the broad sense, and in
light of the fre(uent assumption that musi eduation)s designated urriular foi are self
e!ident and direted by !alues presumed to be intrinsi.
8n this !iew, then, popular musi studies might be 6ustified on grounds that they
de!elop the kind of ritial awareness that makes people less !ulnerable to totali.ing
4uni!ersali.ing, or totalitarian5 thought, to apitalism)s !oraious need for willing
onsumers, or to the potent semioti 4thought- and beha!ior-shaping5 fores at work in
the musis that now per!ade almost e!ery aspet of e!eryday life.
>F
<e might argue
without ontradition, then, that one reason we should study popular musi is preisely
beause musi of it is of dubious (uality. That muh popular musi ser!es as propaganda
or a substitute for ritial awareness may be granted without disounting the importane
of addressing it eduationally. There are at least two reasons popular musi)s dangers or
defiienies should not keep it our of shools& first, it is not uniformly defeti!e or
defiient7 and seond, one of the onerns of eduation is to enhane people)s aess to
what is better, to make them more disriminating in their pereptions and hoies. Musi
eduation might atually presume to impro!e the (uality of popular musi by making
students more fully aware and ompetent.
>I

#dorno)s sathing riti(ues of popular musi as mind-numbing indotrination
4training the unonsious for onditioned refle2es5, though not uni!ersally !alid as he
belie!ed, are persuasi!e aounts of what may indeed happen where people are not
e2tended the potential benefits of musial eduation. 3rom this perspeti!e, eduation
and shooling e2ist in part to gi!e people more ontrol o!er their li!es, and to enable
them to make true, informed hoies. The eduated person makes deisions and ats in
Bowman, Pop Music, 21
light of the desirability of foreseen onse(uenes. The musially eduated person is able
to use musi to enhane and shape time, not simply to 0kill1 it.
,J
#t least one further reason to study popular musi remains -- one that differs
substantially from, but is by no means inompatible with, what has been ad!aned abo!e.
+opular musi might be approahed as a !ital field of ation, suh that instrution seeks
to help students partiipate in and ontribute reati!ely to the field itself. This orientation
would fous on bringing students into a realm of meaningful and potentially rewarding
ation and is losely aligned with the performane emphasis of on!entional musi
eduation in "orth #meria. #lthough it is also more losely aligned with training than
with the broader sense of eduation, its ontinuity with e2isting pratie would doubtless
enhane its appeal and familiarity to musi eduators. <hether the di!erse performane
praties of the popular musi field are feasible in standardi.ing institutions like shools
or whether the small si.e of popular musi groups render them un!iable !ehiles for the
eduation of broad student populations remains to be seen. 'n light of the allegations of
seleti!ity that ha!e plagued large performing ensembles historially, this latter (uestion
needs to be onsidered arefully.
Popular Music an% Schooling
("
' ha!e referred repeatedly to things like di!ersity, hange, omple2ity,
ontestedness, and ontradition when harateri.ing the field of popular musi7 eah of
these being inherent features of li!ing human praties, of 0ulture1 in ontrast to
0i!ili.ation.1 The eduational issues raised by suh harateristis need to be addressed
e2pliitly, howe!er. Most of these re!ol!e around tensions between li!ing, breathing
Bowman, Pop Music, 22
ulture and the standardi.ed and standardi.ing systems typial of institutionali.ed
instrution. 'n brief, what often makes popular musi popular are things like oarseness,
orporeality, asualness, and ontradition to say nothing of its polysemi nature, its
apaity to engage di!erse groups of people in simultaneously different ways on
simultaneously different le!els, not all of them refleti!e. Musial !alidity issues aside,
many of these harateristis are simply inappropriate to publi institutionali.ed
instrution.
:ut what of the further (uestion& an popular musi deemed otherwise appropriate
remain !iable in suh settings? #lthough none of the potential impediments are
insuperable, some do demand areful onsideration. 'n the first plae, the omfort of
formal institutions an be inimial to the utting edge ultural realities that are so often
the fous of popular artistry. Seondly, the tehnial standards of shooled artistry may be
at odds with the kinds of raw reati!e energies at the heart of li!ing, breathing musial
praties. Thirdly, the history of any truly reati!e tradition, as Prayk reminds us,
re!ol!es around indi!idual in!entions or ahie!ements that simply annot be predited
from their predeessors.
,>
Therefore, instrution that seeks truly to situate students amid
0the ation1 in popular realms needs not only to allow for but also to inorporate things
like di!ergene, unpreditability, freedom, radial e2perimentation a potential worry,
one might think, in institutions that are otherwise de!oted so e2tensi!ely to
standardi.ation and onformity. %onser!ati!e institutional inertia, as the e2ample of 6a..
shows, tends to enshrine and refine praties rather than nurturing their further e!olution.
# personal friend and de!oted 6a.. musiian, =es +aine, one made a passing omment to
me about the standardi.ing effet of formali.ed pedagogial systems on 6a.. performane
Bowman, Pop Music, 23
a profound omment whose seeming simpliity makes it all the more potent. 0'f you put
kethup on e!erything,1 he obser!ed, 0e!erything is going to taste like kethup.1
:y ommitting seriously to proess, one hanges almost e!erything about musi
eduation. To the alarmist response that we stand to lose more than we gain by 0hanging
e!erything,1 ' an only offer that ' am not neessarily suggesting we disard urrent
instrutional praties and urriular emphases in their entirety as if that were e!en
possible. 8ne an alter fundamental assumptions, goals, and proesses without starting
o!er from srath. Se!eral fundamental harateristis of the status (uo would almost
ertainly ha!e to be re6eted, howe!er fondness for standardi.ation and uniformity
foremost among these.
't is e2traordinarily diffiult to a!oid 4mis5representing any ulture as fro.en when
teah. 3urthermore, there fre(uently omes with institutionali.ed study a degree of
tehnial polish and refinement unharateristi of pra2is in the field outside. Shools are
by their !ery nature artifiial, ontrolled en!ironments. <hether or not this amounts to a
seriously stultifying fator, it does entail the reation of musial ultures that differ in
fundamental ways from those in the 0real world.1 Shool ultures are no less 0real1 than
ultures outside shool but they are different. More to the point here, the polish and
refinement harateristi of institutional ultures tend to generate li(ues or 0lubs1
where tehnial !irtuosity, for instane, beomes !alued abo!e no!elty, or where
pratitioners play and ommuniate predominantly with eah other.
,,
0%lubs1 like these
e!entually beome musial museums, and must turn to funding foundations to
ompensate for dwindling support from 0outside1 soures. 'n fat, shools and
uni!ersities themsel!es often ser!e preisely this kind of uratorial funtion -- pro!iding
Bowman, Pop Music, 24
support for musial ati!ity that is no longer finanially !iable elsewhere. Suh
ommerial supports, as we ha!e seen, are among the distinti!e harateristis of
popular musi in the first plae.
Se!eral onsiderations warrant our attention. 3irst, the !alues of eduation and of
the ommerial sphere are often inompatible.
,?
Sine ommerial !alue is an important
part of what makes the popular 0popular,1 this should gi!e us pause. %hange the
ommerial dimension, one might say, and one has hanged what the musi is. 'f this is
persuasi!e, we would do well to stay open to the possibility that the deemed admissibility
of a musial pratie into the shool urriulum may indiate the preliminary onset of
0aestheti fatigue.1
,@
The fat that popular musis hange so fre(uently, mo!ing into and out of fashion
at sometimes breathtaking speed, poses problems of its own. #mong these is the fat that
a pratitioner who is fluent, suessful, or pedagogially astute in the popular musi of
one era is not neessarily so in another. The transformation from hip to arhai an
happen o!er night, and this has far reahing impliations for the preparation and
professional de!elopment of musi eduators at least where flueny is onsidered
essential to pedagogial ompetene, an assumption with a lengthy pedigree in the
profession.
Muh of what has 6ust been said here makes the assumption, ' belie!e 6ustified in
light of past and urrent pratie, that musi eduation would turn to popular musi
primarily as a mode of performane. 9owe!er, ' ha!e also suggested that we might well
embrae popular musi with the intent of making students more disriminating listeners
and onsumers, an end that might ater to a broader eduational 0audiene1 than those
Bowman, Pop Music, 25
speifially interested in de!eloping performane skills. This is not to suggest that
performane skills are in any way inompatible with the de!elopment of disrimination.
The more likely issue is one of effiieny, or breadth of eduational ontat. 'f our
interest in popular musi stems from a onern for the way those we euphemistially all
0general1 students think about and respond to musi in e!eryday life a highly laudable
eduational onern, ' submit other issues demand our srutiny. %hief among these is a
onern raised by Prayk& the desirability of bringing self-onsiousness to an area in
whih !ast numbers of people urrently engage un-self-onsiously, without benefit of
instrution, and 0without an2iety or feelings of inferiority.1 8ne of popular musi)s
attrations, Prayk reminds us, is preisely that 0it is not regarded as *art,) something one
must work to appreiate.1
,A
The transformation of popular musi into a 0serious1
enterprise of the kind we ha!e enshrined for the study of the lassis and 6a.. is a onern
about whih eduators need to e2erise aution.
' stated earlier that a ommitment to proess 0hanges e!erything.1
,E
<hether
suh a laim is greeted with enthusiasm or trepidation depends upon whether one
belie!es things need to hange. ' belie!e they do. #nd thus, ' onlude this brief o!er!iew
of popular musi and shooling with the obser!ation that emphasis upon proess, ation,
ageny, and ultural engagement emphasis that ' belie!e follows from a ommitment to
inluding popular musi in musi eduation is fundamentally at odds with the
produtNreeption fous that has typified traditional musi studies. That onstitutes a
serious impediment to the kind of hange that popular musi seems to re(uire. :ut in it
also lies onsiderable potential for professional reoneptuali.ation, re!itali.ation, and
Bowman, Pop Music, 26
transformation. <ith that in mind, let us onlude with a brief in!entory of the potential
benefits of taking popular musi seriously.
Popular Music an% the Music '%ucation Pro#ession
Taking popular musi seriously, it should be lear, is by no means a utopian
solution to all musi eduation)s problems. :ut neither is it anathema to the ideals of
musi eduation or an abdiation of eduational responsibility.
,F
"umerous ad!antages
might well arue to the profession depending, of ourse, upon what popular musi is
taken to mean and how we aommodate it. ' suggest that these !ery ontingenies are at
one the greatest hallenge and the greatest potential benefit to musi eduation. 'f we are
willing to aept the degree of disiplinary hange it in!ol!es, bringing popular musi
into the shools an indeed make a signifiant differene. ;eogni.ing popular musi
praties as potential pur!eyors of musial and eduational !alue makes it diffiult for us
to ontinue as though answers to the (uestions, <hat musi? and <hose musi? are
somehow pre-ordained and self-e!ident. 't takes away from us the omfort and
on!eniene of appeals to 0intrinsi1 or 0inherent1 musial !alue. 't an no longer be
(uite so lear who the benefiiaries or reipients of musial instrution should be. "or
an we proeed as if the primary ends of instrution are foregone onlusions. 't replaes
habitual praties with (uestions -- a highly desirable turn of e!ents, in my !iew.
Taking popular musi seriously will fore us to reogni.e the mutual reiproity
of musi and ulture, the soial and politial power of musi, and in turn its profound
importane in human affairs. 't will fore us to aept taste-group affiliations as ruial
omponents of musial !alue, and mo!e us away from aesthetis-influened
preoupation with 0works1 or 0piees1 and the supposedly inherent !alues of their
Bowman, Pop Music, 2!
formal or e2pressi!e features. 't will help both us and our students understand musi, in
%a!ihi)s words, as an 0open *proess,) and not a losed *ob6et).1
,I
Taking popular musi seriously will mean aepting the ontraditory, the
parado2ial, and the ambiguous as pedagogial assets.
?J
't will fore us to see and study
musi and its meanings as soiopolitial onstruts -- bubbling, fermenting, and part of
0the ation1 at the heart of ulture -- rather than as artifats or by-produts of suh
ations.
Taking popular musi seriously will hange the role of the musi eduator, who
an hardly presume any longer to be an authoritati!e pur!eyor of fatual insights in a
field notable for its effer!esene, fluidity, polysemy, hybridity, and mutation. <hat
students bring to the eduational e2periene will of neessity beome muh more entral,
a fat that will arguably alter in positi!e ways what they take away as well.
Taking popular musi seriously will draw into the eduational realm many
students who are traditionally and urrently e2luded. Thus, whom we seek to eduate
will beome a more salient issue -- one to be resol!ed in a !ariety of ways in response to
di!erse loal irumstanes.
Taking popular musi seriously will make the lassis the greatest musial
ahie!ements of the past all the more momentous. They beome far more !ital onerns
to the e2tent they are appropriately seen as part of a ontinuous, dynami musial field
rather than as onstituting the whole of it. ;ather than museum piees that demand
re!erent appreiation, they beome part of a broader, li!ing ulture -- ulturally !ital,
!ibrant, and rih in their power to enrih here-and-now e2periene in the real world.
Bowman, Pop Music, 2"
Taking popular musi seriously offers to replae our notions of musi as a thing to
be appreiated, understood, and respeted for its inherent (ualities with the reognition
that all musis are ations that are use%ul in myriad ways. That musial !alue is
inseparable from (uestions of use or funtion is an insight rih with eduational and
musial impliations. 8ne of the una!oidable onse(uenes of aepting popular musi
as legitimate is the reognition that !alue is always 0!alue for.1 'nherent and autonomous
!alue are inspiring, but ideologially-loaded, onstruts that are designed to pri!ilege
musi whose 0!alue for1 is institutionally hidden. ;eogni.ing all musial !alue as
pratial !alue re(uires us to renoune the myths perpetrated by an aonte2tual,
ahistorial Mantian aestheti heritage, re6eting the aloofness from e!eryday onerns that
heritage has attributed to 0aestheti1 e2periene. 't has beome e2traordinarily easy in the
wake of aestheti orthodo2y to take up musi making 4and teahing5 without paying
attention to soial or politial ontraditions. To take popular musi seriously is to hange
that, deisi!ely and irre!ersibly. Prayk obser!es that 0all musi is historially grounded
in the praties of musial ommunities. 'ts assessment must be grounded in a
ommunity of musiians and listeners, not in a transendental *essene).1
?/

Taking popular musi seriously will pose diret and signifiant hallenges to our
eduational obsession with things lear and distint, and to our prediletion to train rather
than to eduate.
?>
Training and its reliane upon narrow, tehnorati models tends to lead
people to re6et what is at first loose, messy, disturbing, or ontraditory. 8ne aim of
eduation should be to help people learn to ling to suh images or notions, not re6eting
them out of hand but working them through7 for it is preisely in suh form that original
ideas almost always first appear. 'nstrution preoupied with the so-alled pratial
Bowman, Pop Music, 2#
40how-to,1 as ontrasted to ethial onerns like whether to, under what irumstanes, to
what e2tent, and so on5 is assoiated with a long history of anti-intelletualism one that
is hardly beoming of a !oation laiming profession status. Pirou2 reminds us that
within the tehnorati tradition
management issues beome more important than understanding and furthering
shools as demorati publi spheres. 9ene, the regulation, ertifiation, and
standardi.ation of teaher beha!ior is emphasi.ed o!er reating the onditions for
teahers to undertake the sensiti!e politial and ethial roles they might assume as
publi intelletuals who seleti!ely produe and legitimate partiular forms of
knowledge and authority.
?,

Taking popular musi seriously would re(uire musi eduators situate suh issues at the
enter of their eduational pra2is.
Taking popular musi seriously would plae (uestions where musi eduation
traditionally finds answers. +opular for whom? 'n what sense? 3rom what diretion?
There is no inherently popular musi, no musi that is of its own 0high1 or 0low.1 't is we
who make it so. #ll musi is intentionally onstruted and onstituted, and any musi has
a potentially !iable laim to artisti or popular status. <e an draw ontingent
distintions, but there is no inherent or durably ob6eti!e differene.
Taking popular musi seriously entails that we ommit to making students less
!ulnerable to the manipulati!e onsumerist strategies of what #dorno ontemptuously
alls 0the ulture industry1-- helping students to beome more aware and more
disriminating toward musi that seeks their ompliity in its popularity, helping inrease
the popularity of lesser known musis that arguably warrant broader reognition, and
Bowman, Pop Music, 3$
helping make informed hoie and musial ageny onspiuous outomes of musial
instrution. 'n short, taking popular musi seriously should re(uire 4to lose with a
deidedly normati!e laim5 that we as musi eduators aept as part of our eduational
obligation a deliberate role in what Middleton memorably alls the 0struggle to redeem
the demorati ore of *the popular.)1
??
)onclusion
Many words ha!e been de!oted here to e2ploring what popular musi is, or is not,
and to the attempt to ome to grips with what it might mean for musi eduation to 0take
popular musi seriously1 as ' ha!e been putting it. :ut in a way, the real (uestion we
need to ask is, 9ow an we no take popular musi seriously?
?@
<hat do we teah our
students when we turn our baks on the !ast ma6ority of the musial e2periene they find
meaningful? <hat do we do to the field of musi when we ar!e it up into neatly
dihotomous and mutually e2lusi!e pakages? #nd perhaps most importantly, what do
we do to our own understanding of musi and its role in human endea!or we who
purport to ha!e speial insights and assume responsibility for the eduation of the publi?
'f we are to do 6ustie to popular musi to its !itality, its omple2ity, and its
legitimay as a field of human musial endea!or we must allow it to hange us. <e
must allow it to ompliate our professional li!es, to enrih our understandings of
musi)s nature and power, to e2tend our assumptions about whih students we presume to
eduate, to broaden our !ision of the ways musi eduation an our, and to reonstrut
our !iews of who musi eduators are, what they do, and how they do it.
Many students we urrently fail to reah, and many of those we do reah, know a
great deal more about musi than we reogni.e. They think and talk about popular musi
Bowman, Pop Music, 31
intelligently, use it in all kinds of ways, and are e2traordinarily disriminating in their
hoies. 'ndeed, they know a great deal of the field of musi better than we do --
powerful e!idene of our neglet. +opular musi is a powerful and influential part of the
musial world to whih we are largely and omplaently obli!ious. Suh a blind spot
seriously ompromises our understanding of the whole. 'n turning our baks on popular
musis and all that they entail, we depri!e students of our insights while depri!ing
oursel!es of theirs.
There will be many who feel the musi eduation profession is inapable of the
kinds of hange to whih ' ha!e alluded here, or at least ill-ad!ised to attempt it. <e must
not underestimate the e2tent of the hallenge, the amount of institutional inertia to be
o!erome. 8ne might e2pet the impetus for hange to arise from young musi eduators
urrently entering the field, but they fae enormous pressures to onform to urrent
praties, and the professional intensifiation reated by our reent infatuation with
standards and standardi.ation e2erts an e2traordinarily hilling effet on large-sale
hange or inno!ation. The time will ome, howe!er -- and perhaps sooner than we
imagine -- when the effort re(uired to keep things as they are will surpass the effort
hange entails. ' would prefer to see us lead rather than respond.
/
$aniel %a!ihi, 03rom the Pround Cp,1 in ,cion, -riicism, and .heory %or Music /ducaion /, no.> 4>JJ>5. #!ailable
at http&NNmas.siue.eduN#%TNinde2.html.
>
'f it is indeed a 0both1 with whih we are onerned here. 'n due ourse, the inade(uay of this dualisti way of thinking
should beome apparent.
,
;ihard Middleton, 0udyin) Popular Music 4+hiladelphia& 8pen Cni!ersity +ress, /IIJ5, ,.
?
My use of the word 0unpopular1 is deliberate and appropriate in this partiular onte2t. Blsewhere in this essay, howe!er,
one might well ask whether 0nonpopular1 would be the more appropriate hoie. 't seems these designations ha!e two
subtly differenes& the former attributes )eneral disli1e to a musi, and the latter suggests that the musi in (uestion,
whate!er its popularity in some (uarters, does not warrant inlusion in the broad ategory 0popular.1 That is, 0unpopular1 is
a more negati!e designation than 0nonpopular.1
@
;ihard Middleton alls this the 0positi!ist1 approah to defining popularity. #s Middleton obser!es, the positi!ist
approah only tells us about sales, not the meaning of popularity. 0Q<Rhat it an tell us about is limited, first, to the data
themsel!es, as ategori.ed, and seond to its own assumptions1 -- assumptions that attempt to sidestep popularity)s
ideologial repleteness. ;ihard Middleton, 0udyin) Popular Music, A. The ontentiousness and ontestedness of
popularity are ruial to its proper understanding, ' submit, and therefore to its potential eduational !alue.
A
't is worth noting that e!en this top-forty approah to defining popularity is far from straight ahead. 't is not so muh a
diret refletion of listeners) preferenes as of the air time distributors manage to ahie!e for their wares.
E
"ote that this ontrast is the !iew of the outsider, to whom other people)s musi 0all sounds the same.1 3or many who are
unfamiliar with so-alled lassial musial traditions, the lassial musi field appears is narrow and preditable preisely
the same laim de!otees of the lassis fre(uently make about other musis.
F
Theodore Prayk 4personal ommuniation5 indiates that his brother insists he 0only listens to unpopular musi1 my
point being that a disdain for 0pop1 e2tends to many whom we might be otherwise inlined to onsider de!otees of popular
musi.
I
;ihard Shusterman, 0$on)t :elie!e the 9ype,1 in Per%ormin) 2i&e3 ,esheic ,lernai&es %or he /nds o% ,r 4'thaa, "Y&
%ornell Cni!ersity +ress, >JJJ54 9ere ' must forego the temptation to argue that muh of what the "orth #merian musi
eduation profession has pursued under the banner of 0aestheti eduation1 might better be desribed as 0aseti
eduation.1 ' belie!e the lam an be substantiated, howe!er. Shusterman also indiates, orretly and alliterati!ely, that
suh aseti idealism is 0a powerful philosophial pre6udie with a +latoni pedigree.1 See also ;ihard Shusterman,
Pra)mais ,esheics3 2i&in) Beauy, 5ehin1in) ,r, 482ford& :lakwell, /II>5.
/J
=eonard :. Meyer, /moion and Meanin) in Music 4%hiago& Cni!ersity of %hiago +ress, /I@A5.
//
' e2plore #dorno in the hapter 0Musi as Soial and +olitial 3ore,1 in my book Philosophical Perspeci&es on Music
4"ew York& 82ford Cni!ersity +ress, /IIF5. Prayk offers a !ery aessible riti(ue of #dorno)s 0hathet 6ob on popular
musi1 4as Prayk harateri.es it5, as does Middleton. See Theodore Prayk, 0#dorno, Ja.., and the ;eeption of +opular
Musi,1 in 5hyhm and 6oise3 ,n ,esheics o% 5oc1 4$urham, "%& $uke Cni!ersity +ress, /IIA5. See ;ihard Middleton,
0't)s #ll 8!er "ow& +opular Musi and Mass %ulture #dorno)s Theory,1 in 0udyin) Popular Music.
/>
;ihard Middleton, 0udyin) Popular Music, @.
/,
'bid.
/?
'bid., E. 'talis in the original.
/@
'bid.
/A
%harles Meil and Ste!en 3eld, Music 7roo&es 4%hiago& Cni!ersity of %hiago +ress, /II?5. This ontrast maps itself
niely onto the ontro!ersy within 6a.. irles o!er whether 6a.. is an art form with, among other things, a long history to
be preser!ed, or whether it is a fundamentally reati!e proess. The traditionalist !iew, held by <ynton Marsalis, onflits
substantially with the proessualist !iew endorsed by Meith Jarrett, +at Metheny and others.
/E
The words of +aul Pilroy, appropriated from a deidedly different onte2t, are far from irrele!ant here. The 0fantasy of a
fro.en ulture,1 of 0fi2ing ommunal interests1 in their 0most authenti and glorious1 form, 0redues ultural traditions to
the simple proess of in!ariant repetition.1 This may help to seure omforting onser!ati!e notions of traditional identity,
but these 0do little 6ustie either to the fortitude or the impro!isational skills1 demanded by the omple2ities of
ontemporary ultural life. <here tradition 0is understood as little more than a list of rigid rules that an be applied
onsiously without attention or attention to partiular historial traditions, it is a ready alibi for authoritarianism rather than
a sign of ultural !iability or ethial onfidene.1 +aul Pilroy, ,)ains 5ace3 8ma)inin) Poliical -ulure Beyond he -olor
2ine 4%ambridge, M#& 9ar!ard Cni!ersity +ress, >JJJ5 /?-/@.
/F
:y mass-mediated, ' mean simply 4or not so simply5 that it is mass produed and mass disseminated by tehnologial
means, whih re(uires its redution from a proess to a thing 4a ommodity5. #gain, ontraditions spring to mind, howe!er.
+eople)s e2periene of the entire musial field tends today to be mediated e!en their e2periene of so-alled lassial or
serious musi, musi that is not originally intended or generally onsidered to be mediated. 4'n "orth #meria, for instane,
most listening to lassial musi now ours in people)s automobiles. See #udiene 'nsight)s report at
http&NNwww.knightfdn.orgNdefault.asp?storySresearhNulturalNonsumersegmentationNinde2.html5 't is, in other words,
misleading to suggest that mediation, ommodity harater, and mass distribution are e2lusi!e or distinguishing attributes
of popular musi when the same laims an now be made for the lassis, 6a.., and most musis that are not regarded as
popular.
/I
't tends, therefore, toward a simpliity unharateristi of notated and notation-based musial praties, though one would
want hastily to add that the multidimensionality and polysemy 4multipliity of meaning5 of suh musi negate the possibility
of simpliity.
>J
These generali.ations re(uire areful (ualifiation. Many of popular musi)s rituals are e2traordinarily elaborate and to
some e2tent formal, and there is in many popular musi irles an e2traordinary amount of onern about authentiity
most often e2pressed as onern about whether an artist has 0sold out1 to ommerial or other pressures. 8n the former
point, ' ha!e in mind the relati!e lak of standardi.ation in popular musi endea!ors& a greater latitude in the range and type
of transmission praties and range of interpreti!e orientations deployed. 8n the latter point, ' ha!e in mind the degree of
hybrid stylisti ross-fertili.ation that is generally tolerated -- a degree enhaned by the relati!ely rapid rate at whih
popular musi omes into and passes out of fashion.
>/
3or elaboration on the idea of embodiment and its potential impliations for our understandings of musi and musi
eduation, see <ayne :owman, 0%ognition and the :ody& +erspeti!es from Musi Bduation,1 in 9nowin) Bodies,
:eelin) Minds3 /mbodied 9nowled)e in ,rs /ducaion and 0choolin), ed. =iora :resler 4$ordreht, The "etherlands&
Mluwer #ademi +ublishers, in press5.
>>
=eonard Meyer designates these parameters as 0primary,1 a mo!e that learly pri!ileges musis that prioriti.e suh formal
attributes. See <ayne :owman, 0Musi as #utonomous 3orm,1 in Philosophical Perspeci&es on Music for a more detailed
disussion of Meyer)s distintions between primary and seondary parameters.
>,
#gain, ' would argue that this is an important onsideration in most 0nonpopular1 musi as well.
>?
' need to emphasi.e that a signifiant part of my relutane stems from the fat that human praties admit to 0definition1
only in !ery (ualified, speial ways. #ll one an do is take a kind of tentati!e barometri reading at a gi!en moment, and
reogni.e that reading represents at best the statistial a!erage drawn from a sample with an e2traordinarily wide standard
de!iation.
>@
Middleton, 0udyin) Popular Music, ,,.
>A
$aniel %a!ihi, letter to the author 4January >J, >JJ,5.
>E
This statement is learly in!alid if one e(uates popularity to rele!ane and in turn gauges the eduational warrant of
instrutional praties by the e2tent of their appeal to a broad onsumer base. That is a position with whih ' ha!e little
sympathy, despite its pre!alene in musi eduation.
>F
8n the ubi(uity of musi)s presene and influene, see Tia $e"ora, Music in /&eryday 2i%e 4%ambridge& %ambridge
Cni!ersity +ress, >JJJ5. See also the essay re!iews of this book by $aniel %a!ihi 403rom the :ottom Cp15, 9ildegard
3roelih 40Takling the Seemingly 8b!ious a $aunting Task 'ndeed15, and John Shepherd 409ow Musi <orks& :eyond
the 'mmanent and the #rbitrary15 published in ,cion, -riicism, and .heory %or Music /ducaion, / no.> 4>JJ>5, a!ailable
at http&NNmas.siue.eduN#%TNinde2.html
>I
8f ourse, this is one of the laims made for on!entional musi eduation. Cnfortunately, though, when the musial field
is fened off into mutually e2lusi!e popular and serious domains, the instrutional emphasis drifts toward the supposedly
0intramusial1 determinants of musial worth found in the latter -- a mo!e that profoundly misrepresents the unified nature
of the musial field and does little to enourage ritial awareness of the great ma6ority of musi that is onse(uently
omitted. The point is not to replae the lassis with the popular, but to approah the entire musial field inlusi!ely and in a
way that makes its ontinuity as lear as its disontinuities.
,J
#lthough, ' hasten to add, killing time is one of the pragmati ends musi has always ser!ed. ' do not wish to denigrate
suh ati!ity, e2ept perhaps as an eduational means or as an e2lusi!e mode of musial engagement. ' hope it goes
without saying that the assumption that fans of popular musi do not really listen is largely erroneous.
,/
' trust that the basis for my impliit distintion between eduation and shooling re(uires no e2planation. # ruial
dimension of shooling that needs to be born in mind here is one that Pirou2 desribes aptly& shooling is 0a mehanism of
ulture and politis, embedded in ompeting relations of power that attempt to regulate and order how students think, at,
and li!e.1 9enry Pirou2, 0$oing %ultural Studies& Youth and the %hallenge of +edagogy,1 in ;ar&ard /ducaional 5e&iew
4A?&,5 >EI.
,>
Prayk, 5hyhm and 6oise.
,,
Milton :abbitt)s infamous artile 0<ho %ares if You =isten?1 is one e2ample that omes to mind. :ut the inreasingly
esoteri and speiali.ed status of institutionali.ed 6a.. is arguably another.
,?
8n the other hand, some would argue ' think persuasi!ely that ommerial interests and onsumerism ha!e beome
entral 4if o!ert5 features of eduation in apitalisti soieties.
,@
Prayk, 5hyhm and 6oise, >J@. $espite deep personal reser!ations about the use 4or mostly mis-use5 of the term
0aestheti1 by musi eduators, ' like this 6u2taposition of imagery.
,A
Prayk, 5hyhm and 6oise, >J@.
,E
' owe this to Peorge 8dam, who e2pressed this profound insight almost in passing during our "CMB=S meeting in June,
>JJ>.
,F
Peorge 8dam ommented in our "CMB=S seminar that the unease attending disussions of popular musi feels at times
like a family disussion about how to deal with a sik hildO
,I
%a!ihi, 03rom the Pround Cp,1 @.
?J
' take up the ogniti!e and eduational !alue of ambiguity in <ayne :owman, 0%ognition and the :ody.1
?/
Prayk, 5hyhm and 6oise, /E,.
?>
' pursue what it might mean to eduate musially in <ayne :owman, 0Bduating Musially,1 in .he 6ew ;andboo1 o%
5esearch on Music .eachin) and 2earnin), eds. ;ihard %olwell and %arol ;ihardson 482ford& 82ford Cni!ersity +ress,
>JJ>5 A,-F?.
?,
Pirou2, 0$oing %ultural Studies,1 >EF.
??
Middleton, 0udyin) Popular Music, >I,. The stage on whih this struggle must be set, he ontinues , is 0the musial
mobili.ation of the *new sub6et) disontinuous but tentaular, loally rooted but a world iti.en. . .1
?@
This was among the pro!oati!e and hallenging ritiisms raised by $aniel %a!ihi 4personal orrespondene5 in a
riti(ue of an earlier draft of this essay. ' am also indebted to ;andall #llsup, ;oger Mantie, and Mristen Myers for
omments and ritiisms that helped me impro!e this essay.