The Practice of Popular Music

Oct 11

I live close to the University of Toronto, and I enjoy attending many events that are open to the public, especially at the Faculty of Music. Two years ago I attended a lecture entitled “Why and How Should We Study and Teach Popular Music?” by Trevor de Clercq, who is a professor in the Department of Recording Industry at Middle Tennessee State University. (I'll tackle this topic in another blog post!)

During his lecture, Prof. de Clercq mentioned that he was working on a textbook about popular music theory. Earlier this year I was finally able to pre-order the book, and it arrived last week.

The Practice of Popular Music is a music theory and musicianship textbook which is fully oriented around popular music genres. It requires no previous training in music theory or notation, beginning with fundamentals and eventually teaching advanced concepts. The author uses the book in the Commercial Musicianship courses which he teaches at Middle Tennessee State University.

I found it fascinating to read through this book, comparing it to traditional, classical music theory pedagogy. The author eschews staff notation altogether: notes are shown by letter names (occasionally shown on a keyboard or MIDI piano notation); harmonic concepts are illustrated using Nashville numbers or root/quality chord symbols (with only the occasional reference to functional chord symbols in Roman numerals in the text). He does include traditional rhythm notation.

The book covers harmony, rhythm, melody, and form. I was fascinated by the order in which the concepts are introduced. For example, after teaching the basics of rhythm, pitch, and major scales, basic song form is introduced (verse/chorus, intro/outro, bridge/solo). The study of basic harmonic progressions is introduced quite early, soon after introducing triads. By the end of the book the reader will have encountered advanced concepts such as common-tone diminished chords, the Neapolitan chord, and tritone substitution (e.g. what classical musicians refer to as augmented sixth chords). Concepts such as compound intervals and asymmetrical meters appear quite late in the book.

I found the book to be very well-written, and I think the author's explanations are quite clear. The musical examples come from a wide range of popular music, from the 1950s to the 2020s, from country music to rap. Each short chapter is followed by practice exercises which often involve listening for the new concepts in a selection of popular songs.

I wouldn't use this book to prepare for RCM or other classical music theory examinations. As I mentioned earlier, the book doesn't cover staff notation; it also ignores concepts which don't apply to popular music, such as octatonic and whole-tone scales. You won't learn about transposing instruments or classical music forms such as binary, ternary, and sonata forms.

That said, this is an excellent book for teaching music theory as it applies to popular music genres. It teaches many concepts which are not taught in classical music theory, such as shuffle and swing, drum feels, cross-rhythms, and Nashville numbers. I would definitely recommend it to students who wish to focus on understanding (and writing) popular music; it also adds greatly to a classical musician's understanding of popular music.

I like to include some links to music in my blog posts. Here are links to some songs (mentioned in The Practice of Popular Music) which make use of asymmetrical meters:

My Wave by Soundgarden (1994) (in 5/4)

Seven Days by Sting (1993) (in 5/8)

The Remedy by Puscifer (2015) (in 5/8)

Animals by Muse (2012) (in 5/8)

Tribal Gathering by the Byrds (1968) (in 5/8, with swing)

Boxelder by Motion City Soundtrack (2012) (in 7/4)

Dreaming in Metaphors by Seal (1994) (in 7/8)

Eleven by Primus (1991) (in 11/8)

Turn It On Again by Genesis (1980) (13/4? changing meters 4/4 + 2/4 + 4/4 + 3/4?)