From Musical Detectives to DJs

Engaging as Musical Detectives or Forensic Musicologists

Throughout popular culture we can find instances where people identify similarities between two or more songs and wonder if one might have borrowed heavily or perhaps even copied the original song. In popular discourse people might debate over whether someone indeed stole another musician’s music. Searching the Internet using terms such as “stole song” or “stolen song” can be revelatory in this regard. At the time this article was written a popular debate addressed whether Katy Perry’s song Roar was “stolen” from Sarah Barelilles’s song Brave. What does this have to do with analysis and aural skills? Some people engaged in such debates rely on aural skills and analysis to inform their perspectives of whether someone did essentially copy a song or make only slight modifications without giving credit to the original. In this case, however, it is not likely that they are engaging in Roman numeral analysis or singing using solfege.

Instead, people might listen to both songs in ways to determine similarities. Doing so in an embodied fashion might include singing or playing one song over another to see if they match harmonically and melodically. Some might use technology to mediate their analysis by slowing down the recordings or adjusting the EQ by emphasizing certain frequencies and muting others to hear if certain parts are present in both songs. Furthermore, people who engage in these ways may never use the terms aural skills, music theory, or analysis. Interestingly, forensic musicologists engage in similar work professionally to determine whether music violates copyright law (Begault, Heise, & Peltier, 2013; Seeger, 1992). When determining whether one musician “stole” another musician’s song, people engage as public forensic musicologists or musical detectives to analyze relationships between music, sometimes offering their perspectives as part of a public dialogue. Why not provide our students with opportunities to engage in these ways? Students engaging as musical detectives and forensic musicologists might address questions such as:

Consider how the process of answering these questions including related musical engagement and debate among students may be more important than determining a “correct” answer.

Engaging as Music Critics: Comparing Versions of Songs

The majority of music that people in contemporary society listen to is recorded. While that may seem an obvious statement, music educators often focus on elements of music that do not necessarily account for aspects of production and recording. For instance, students might analyze and discuss digital effects ranging from reverb and vocal processing to how parts of the music are mixed and balanced across the stereo field (Gibson, 2005). By acknowledging aspects of recording and production, music educators might broaden and deepen the ways students listen to live and recorded music. Addressing aspects of sound recordings can also expand students’ foci when comparing different versions of the same song such as when it is performed live or produced.

Drawing attention to similarities and differences between varied live performances and recordings of music can be quite productive in music classrooms. Many concerts are available on YouTube, providing an interesting opportunity to experience, observe, and discuss similarities and differences of live and recorded versions of music. This is particularly powerful when students recognize that the same musician can sound different depending on artistic choices, skills, and technological adjustments. Students might listen for how a musician performs select music with consistency or with variations in quality or aesthetics across multiple performances.

Similar to the role of being musical detectives described earlier, students might compare and contrast different musicians’ versions of the same music to identify similarities and differences in performance quality, interpretations, stylistic attributes, along with other aspects of music typically addressed in music programs (Malawey, 2011). For instance the song Dazed and Confused, made famous by the group Led Zeppelin can be traced back through multiple covers to the original version by Jake Holmes, which is of a very different style than that which is familiar to those who have only heard it performed by Led Zeppelin. Students engaging as music critics might address questions such as:

Engaging as Cover Artists, Arrangers, and Stylistic Transformers

Just as students can analyze different versions of the same song as outlined above, they can participate in the re-creation of music by generating and performing their own versions of music. In a Western classical tradition, performers typically decode standard notation and interpret the music in a way that adheres to a composer’s intent. While this can occur in popular music contexts, people often perform popular music in ways that modify and even transform the music. A key aspect of this process is having a deep understanding of musics’ stylistic attributes (Sandywell & Beer, 2005; Shave, 2008). Furthermore, the process of arranging music may help students develop a better understanding of genres in a way that is contextualized in musical engagement (Bush, 2007). Covering or arranging music in ways that adhere to a particular musical style or change the musical context completely call for applying aural skills and analysis. This is particularly important when transforming music from one style or genre to another.

Take for instance, musician Dave Days (2009) who created the original song I’m better than your boyfriend and performed it in “acoustic,” “pop,” “pop punk,” “rap,” and “hardcore” genres. Days captures the stylistic attributes of each genre, making each version of his original song recognizable as idiomatic of each type of music. Similarly, musician Anthony Valbiro (2014) creates “ten second songs” in which he sings a song in the style of varied artists, changing styles approximately every ten seconds. Valbiro captures key aspects of each style, moving between them seamlessly throughout the song. In a different approach the musical comedy group The Lonely Island (n.d.) create satirical original music that captures the essence of varied popular music genres in a successful manner. ²

To what extent are music students able to move flexibly between musical styles and genres in these ways? Students interested in recreating, arranging, and transforming music through performance and production will need to listen intently to the musical styles and genres they wish to emulate to determine the attributes and approach to realize their musical goals. Students might also benefit from analyzing what makes others’ musical recreations, arrangements, and transformations successful or unsuccessful. Students engaging as musical arrangers or transformers might address questions such as:

Engaging as Music Teachers and Learners

While many people learn to perform music by reading standard notation, this is but one approach. A segment of the population learns popular music by ear (Green, 2002) or with the help of video tutorials (Kruse, 2013; Kruse & Veblen, 2012; Miller, 2012). School music programs might provide students with opportunities to learn music without the use of standard notation. Consider the types of aural skills and analysis involved when a young person listens repeatedly and intently to learn how to perform music. This approach to learning music by ear in schools has a rich history overseas in programs such as Musical Futures (2008), which is informed by the research of Lucy Green (2002, 2008)

Other students might prefer to recreate music with technology rather than performing it live. Whether using technology to recreate the beat (the musical parts over which someone raps) of a hip hop track or create a timbre that exactly matches one used in a popular song, young people can gain much from recreating music with digital media. Furthermore, allowing a place for students to engage in these ways in classroom contexts provides opportunities to scaffold their learning and make connections to additional aspects of the curriculum. Music educators can learn much about their students and how they are developing as musicians by observing their engagement in these ways and listening to the related discussions they have with peers.

Along with such listening and analysis, students might investigate video tutorials of how to perform and recreate music in terms of accuracy, helpfulness, and quality. Developing the capacity for students to recognize inaccuracies and breadth of quality among available video tutorials puts aural skills into a real-life context and helps students develop critical analytical skills that can be useful throughout their musical lives. Additionally, students might create their own video tutorials to teach others how to perform or recreate music. This helps situate their aural and analytical skills in a different context as they work to perform or recreate the music accurately and explain the process in a way that can be helpful to others. This aspect of aural skills and analysis can have a direct connection to students’ musical lives outside of school. Students engaging in learning and teaching others to perform or recreate music might address questions such as:

Engaging as Music Cartographers: Identifying and Mapping Musical Relationships

Certain aspects of engagement with popular music and culture rely on the ability for one to engage in a process of connecting and identifying musical relationships. For instance, while one can simply generate a playlist with little effort, some people take great care in crafting compelling playlists that highlight or play with connections among the music. The skill and musical decision making that go into crafting playlists may become increasingly important to address in music education as people rely on the automation of this process through technology and algorithms (Thibeault, 2014). Students might find it interesting and valuable to analyze the relationships between music that plays on music discovery systems such as pandora.com, spotify.com or iTunes radio.

Students might also analyze the results generated by music discovery systems that visualize relationships between music such as liveplasma.com, music-map.com, musicovery.com, or furzr.net. Students might think more deeply about technology, music discovery, and playlists when addressing questions such as: Why is this application suggesting this particular music to me? To what degree are these proposed relationships accurate? How did this application analyze this music? However, music educators should think carefully about the degree to which they include music discovery systems in their classrooms given the unpredictability of what music might play and possibility that students might encounter music inappropriate in school contexts.

When creating playlists, students might draw on aural skills and analysis to address issues of tempo, genre, key, style, and feel, among other issues. While technology and digital media might be used as tools to help in this context, students might find it enjoyable and meaningful to create their own playlists thoughtfully rather than having algorithms determine what is played and in what order. Students might use web-based services designed to facilitate the creation of playlists, such as spotify.com or 8tracks.com, to create and embed playlists on websites, blogs, or school-appropriate social media. Students making musical connections and engaging as music cartographers might address questions such as:

Engaging as DJs

DJs need to be able to connect with whoever is present by quickly gauging the interests and response of those engaging with the music being played. This way of connecting with people listening and moving to the music relies on aural and analytical skills that also take into account musical knowledge and understanding of social and cultural contexts. DJ’s can be excellent at understanding how a broad range of music may be connected. While one can draw on factual information about music, excellent DJs can also hear these relationships. The ability to mix between and even layer music together requires additional aural skills and analysis that might be missing from typical music programs.

For instance, beat matching or aligning two different tracks of music that may vary in tempo requires a type of aural skills that may never come into play when sight singing or identifying chord qualities. While many music applications can automate the beat matching process, having students engage in this musical practice by ear might help them develop aural skills useful in popular music contexts. Music educators might integrate a range of software and equipment for these purposes to provide students opportunities to apply aural skills and analysis in the context of DJing (Challis, 2007).

Along with identifying musical elements such as tempo, dynamics, and tonality, students engaging as DJs could apply aural skills and analysis to determine how music fits in the context of a particular genre as well as how it relates to other styles (Snell, 2011). Students might develop a deeper musical understanding of these concepts through applying aural skills and analysis to mix between different music or even layer songs together in interesting ways to create a new sound. Students engaging as DJs might address questions such as:

Diversifying Our Approaches to Incorporating Aural Skills and Analysis

This article outlined the following approaches to helping students develop aural skills and analysis: engaging as musical detectives or forensic musicologists; engaging as music critics; engaging as cover artists, arrangers, or stylistic transformers; engaging as music teachers and learners; engaging as music cartographers; and engaging as DJs. Each approach is situated in the context of how people engage with popular music and culture. Furthermore, these approaches provide students opportunities to address standards of creating, responding, performing, and connecting in real-life musical contexts and often in an overlapping manner. Music teachers might view these ways of applying and developing aural skills and analysis as opportunities to diversify their curriculum and pedagogy and expand beyond what they may have experienced in their own music education. Though it requires planning, creative music teachers may find places to incorporate these approaches in any of the classes or ensembles they teach by modifying the approaches in relation to curricular expectations and developmental appropriateness.

Addressing popular music and culture may also help music teachers expand beyond aspects of curricula that draw primarily upon Western European paradigms of aural skills and analysis. Furthermore, including popular music and culture along with related musical engagement invites broad and diverse conceptualizations and realizations of aural skills and analysis in music programs. Those dedicated to such diversity may realize that as popular music and culture evolve, so too may the ways that people engage with music as well as the types of aural skills and analysis that might be included in music programs. Rethinking aural skills and analysis in the context of popular music and culture is a first step to providing students with multiple possibilities to grow and develop as musicians.