This semester I am once again teaching pop theory and aural skills at NYU. I have done some previous reflections on these classes. The students are undergrads, mostly studying instrumental and vocal performance, songwriting and music technology. They range in stylistic background from pop to rock to jazz to R&B to hip-hop to musical theater, and there are also a few escapees from the classical side.
The topics
The pop kids have to do all the lower-level Western tonal theory, and then a bunch of pop-specific stuff on top. That’s a lot of material, certainly more than the kids in the classical sequence have to do.
- Chord symbols
- Song structure (AABA, strophic, verse/chorus)
- Modes and modal harmony
- Voice leading
- Tonic, predominant and dominant
- Circle of fifths progressions
- Stepwise basslines and chord inversions
- Other standard chord progressions
- Phrase structure and motives
- Embellishing tones
- Blues melody
- Reharmonization
- Melodic-harmonic divorce
- Secondary dominants
- ii-V-I
- Modulation
- Tritone substitutions
- Diminished and augmented chords
- Chromatic mediants
There are also some sessions at the end left to instructors’ choice.
I previously asked whether there’s a way to teach counterpoint that is less of a drag. This semester, I am going to continue trying to find out. We don’t have to take the pop kids through SATB chorale writing, thank goodness. But they do need to know something about counterpoint. Unfortunately, there isn’t a well developed pedagogy of non-classical counterpoint, so we’re on our own.
How do we foster memorization without mind-numbing drills?
The kids have to learn key signatures, intervals, time signatures, and chord and scale construction. I never learned any of this in a systemic way; I picked it up through osmosis over several decades of playing, writing and arranging. We’re provided with automated practice drills with Musition and Auralia, which no one loves, but I don’t know of a better way. I don’t love doing drills in class because I don’t want to crush the kids’ souls, so I am looking for alternative ways to drive the material home. My solution has been to write a lot of explainer songs and etudes, presenting theory in legitimate-sounding musical settings. My hope is that singing the songs together achieves the same goals as drilling, but without making people want to change their major. Here are some examples—they are all MuseScore files.
- Key signatures
- Intervals
- Diatonic triads and seventh chords
- Relative minors
- Embellishing tones
- Chromatic embellishments
- Mode mixture
- Takadimi
- Time signatures
I like putting the MuseScore files up on the screen because the kids can either read them the typical way or sing along with the playback. I was hesitant to roll these things out at first, because I didn’t want to seem like too much of a weirdo, but the response has been very positive.
I would love to find a publisher for these things. I’m thinking, a spiral bound music theory explainer songbook. I think it could be a hit, but I haven’t found a taker yet. People have suggested self-publishing but I don’t have the bandwidth.
Projects, not exams
One of my core beliefs from studying education is that exams are counterproductive for learning. Any information that you cram for an exam will be gone in six weeks if you don’t use it for something practical. Rather than give exams, I assign projects that require the same knowledge that would be on the test. I want these to be real-world musical problem-solving situations, either using iconic songs or having the kids write stuff themselves.
I believe in having the projects be open-book. I let the kids look up whatever chords, scales and other information they need as they go along. This means that I can give assignments that are hard and complicated, with no need to simplify or decontextualize.
So here’s a list of projects that I’m planning to try this spring.
Theory projects
Beatles harmony
Add at least one backing harmony vocal part to “Yesterday” by the Beatles (1965). It should complement the melody without doubling it, it should follow the chord changes, and it should be singable (the voice leading should be reasonably smooth.)
Last year I used “Enjoy the Silence” by Depeche Mode for this assignment, but it was too weird and complicated. I also considered using “Mr Tambourine Man” by Bob Dylan, because the chords are simpler, but the melody doesn’t follow those chords very closely at times, so it’s a little harder than you might think.
Prince bassline
“When Doves Cry” by Prince (1984) has no bassline. You will add one. It should spell out the chords and harmonic rhythm, and should complement the melody without simply duplicating it.
Yes, I know Prince removed the bassline from this song for a reason. I considered choosing a song that already had a bassline and using a stem splitter to remove it. However, I really like “When Doves Cry” for this assignment because it’s relatively simple, but also extraordinarily cool. Check out the asymmetrical harmonic rhythm in that last measure!
Midterm project: Top-line melody writing
You will be given a pop instrumental. Write a top-line melody for one verse, prechorus and chorus. It should fit the groove and the chords.
Last year I required everyone to write melodies in notation, but this year I will give them the option to work by ear in the MIDI piano roll or by singing. If they want to use notation, great, but if they want to do it in a more pop-authentic manner, that’s fine too.
String arranging
Add a cello part to “All Is Full Of Love” (Radio Strings Mix) by Björk (1997). It should complement the melody and bassline without doubling them, and should mostly use chord tones.
This is a new assignment. Every young cellist says that they have been called in to play on an indie rock song, and were never handed a chart. I could use an indie rock song for the project but I would rather use Björk, because she employs a lot of cellists too.
I would love to assign a full Motown-style string arrangement, but that would be asking a lot in a one-semester class. I mean, would I be asking the kids to write the viola part in freaking alto clef?
Middle school orchestra arrangement
Arrange the song of your choice for very young and inexperienced musicians. You should have three instrumental lines, for example, melody, harmony and bass. Simplify the pitches and rhythms as much as possible while still retaining the essential features of the song.
The composer and teacher Garrett Schumann suggested this project, and I adore it. The kids will have to exercise a lot of judgment: which features are necessary to retain in order to convey the sense of the song? How much complexity is manageable?
Final project: Original song
This is a joint project with aural skills class developed by some other folks in the department, and I am very excited to do it. Students will write complete original songs that use concepts discussed in the class, produce them fully in a DAW, and write detailed lead sheets. It’s a big project! I’ll write about it in detail in a future post.
Aural skills projects
Nina Simone transcription
Transcribe the vocal melody of the first verse of Nina Simone’s recording of “Nobody’s Fault But Mine” (1969). Add chord symbols.
I may swap this out for something with fewer bent pitches and less rhythmic ambiguity, depending on the skill level in the room. But I do love this tune, and I like that transcribing it into Western notation requires editorial judgment.
Solfège karaoke
Using Takadimi syllables, record yourself singing along with:
- the horn section break at 1:22 in “Children of Production” by Parliament (1976)
- the first four measures of the bassline to “Forget Me Nots” by Patrice Rushen (1982)
Using movable-do solfège syllables, record yourself singing along with:
- the first two measures of the bassline to “Chameleon” by Herbie Hancock (1973)
- the head (composed melody) to “Work Song” by Nat Adderley (1960) (from 0:00 to 0:24).
Solfège and takadimi are very useful learning tools for people who get exposed to them early enough. Unfortunately, I am not one of those people; I didn’t learn solfège properly until I was 35 years old, and hadn’t even heard of takadimi until I was 45. I have never used either of these things outside of a classroom; I just think in terms of interval sizes, scale degrees, and sixteenth note subdivisions. Students who come into my classes knowing solfège already are happy to use it, but the ones who haven’t used it before find it to be an obstacle to understanding rather than an aid. Only a few students come in having seen takadimi before, and hardly anyone is happy about it. I will continue to do my best to teach it, but it’s a pain point. My idea with this project is that it’s good transcription practice, whether or not the solfège aspect benefits anyone.
Midterm transcription
Transcribe eight measures of the song of your choice. Include all of the layers you can hear: vocals, guitar, keyboards, bass, drums, strings, horns, and so on. Make sure to include chord symbols.
It’s possible to cheat on this assignment by picking a well-known song, finding a transcription online, and copying it. However, few if any students have done that in the past. Most of them were happy to be analyzing something of their own choice and threw their whole heart into it.
Meters transcription
Transcribe measures six and seven of “Hey Pocky a-Way” by the Meters (1975). Include all instrumental layers: piano, guitar, bass, drum kit, cowbell, and tambourine.
This was a struggle for many students the last time I assigned it, both because the rhythms are hard, and because aurally detangling all of the instrumental layers is a big challenge. I think it’s a richly valuable experience for that reason.
Improv transcription
You will be given an instrumental backing track. Scat-sing an improvised melody that is at least eight measures long. It should fit the rhythmic groove and chord progression. Transcribe your melody as accurately as you can.
This is a warmup for the songwriting project described above.
What about rhythm?
I would love to have a month to spend on rhythm and drum programming, but I just can’t. The syllabus is stacked with melody, harmony and form. There are a few rhythm topics on the aural skills syllabus, but I would ideally love to do, say, a series of drum programming and breakbeat chopping projects. Maybe in the future.
How do you grade creative projects?
The songwriting and arranging projects are open-ended problems with infinite possible different solutions. So how do I grade? In a perfect world, I wouldn’t. However, we need to give grades, so I try to stick to an objective rubric: Did you do the project? Did you follow the instructions? Does your solution make some kind of musical sense? I give my subjective opinions, too, but those don’t affect the grades, because I want the kids developing their tastes, not copying mine.
The problem comes in the “making musical sense” part. NYU undergrads have absolutely no feel for functional harmony. They just don’t hear it intuitively. I can sympathize, because I don’t have much of an ear for Western European classical convention, but I can at least hear how an F sounds “wrong” on a C major chord unless it resolves, or unless it’s in a blues tune. The kids genuinely do not hear the F as wrong, even in middle of the road pop. So there’s some friction as I figure out what is the kids being wrong and what is me being old.
Teaching pop music is hard, because what even are the rules? The most you have to go on are stylistic conventions. If you’re going to write a bassline for “When Doves Cry”, it has to make sense in Prince’s style and should not be Bach-style counterpoint. On the other hand, Bach-style counterpoint would work fine on “Yesterday”. But bad voice leading would also work fine on “Yesterday”, as long as it’s singable. It might work better! We have to negotiate these things as we go.