Annual Popular Music Theory & Analysis Summer School
Our annual Summer School has run since 2021, twinned with the Institute of Popular Music in Rochester (https://www.rochester.edu/popmusic/) and is supported also by the Society for Music Analysis (www.sma.ac.uk). Organised by Kenneth Smith, Richard Worth and John Covach (Rochester), the summer school features three specialist tutors, each pioneers in their field. Averaging 40 attendees per year, the course offers introductions to popular music theory and analysis, while offering first-hand insight into the developing landscape of the field.
Annual Symposium On Theory & Analysis in Popular Music
An annual symposium on theory and analysis is also hosted at the University of Liverpool’s Music Department. The July 2024 Symposium On Theory & Analysis in Popular Music was supported by the School of the Arts and featured: Matt BaileyShea, Alyssa Barna, Nicole Biamonte, John Covach, Stephanie Doktor, Walt Everett,Allan Moore, and Mark Spicer. The symposium features many individual presentations and discussions, and a memorial in recognition and memory of the work of the late Phil Tagg.
The Routledge Companion to Popular Music Analysis
This 2018 publication, co-edited between the IPM’s Kenneth Smith and Ciro Scotto (Ohio) and John Bracket (Vance-Granville Community College), contains 28 chapters which examine popular music by taking the perspective of developments in contemporary art music as a point of departure to open up multiple new paradigms. It features essays by Liverpool staff, Michael Spitzer (on Neutral Milk Hotel and Post-Memory), Kenneth Smith (of desire in Arab Strap’s music), Giles Hooper (making a plea for us not to forget ‘the music’), and Freya Jarman’s supporting work (with Bethany Lowe on self-referential songs).
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