A growing number of higher education leaders and pedagogues in the United States have sought to include popular music into their curricula. One of the core tenets for any music program is the study of music theory. Although there have been investigations into the inclusion of popular music in undergraduate music courses, little attention has been given to how popular music theory has been taught in higher popular music education (HPME) institutions. According to Shulman (1987), scholars and educators agree that there is a knowledge base for teaching specific to each academic subject, which by extrapolation includes popular music theory. Shulman (1987) additionally argued that all educators utilized a process of pedagogical reasoning and action, in which educators progressed through a cyclic process of comprehension, transformation, instruction, evaluation, reflection, and arrive at new comprehensions. The purpose of this study was to explore the pedagogy of popular music theory in higher education institutions by examining the pedagogical reasoning and action of professors who taught popular music theory courses in HPME institutions. The following research questions guided this study: 1. What resources do popular music theory pedagogues explore, and what are their criteria for inclusion, when selecting curricular materials? 2. How do popular music theory pedagogues prepare (analyze, interpret, transform, and organize) curricular materials? 3. How do popular music theory pedagogues adapt and tailor instruction, as well as evaluate student understanding? 4. How do popular music theory pedagogues reflect on the instructional process, and what new comprehensions of subject matter, students, and self arise from their reflection? To address these research questions, I conducted a multiple-case study researching the methods, reasonings, and knowledge of three university professors who taught popular music theory at select higher education institutions. The participants in this study were selected using purposeful, criterion-based sampling. Data collection was primarily completed utilizing interviews, observations, and document collection. The interviews were transcribed from their recordings, and the observation data were transcribed from field notes. A coding system was adapted from Shulman’s (1987) framework, which included the knowledge base for learning and the areas of pedagogical reasoning and action, and a report for each case was generated proceeding the cross-case analysis. Triangulation of the data occurred through repetitious review of all recordings, transcriptions, observational data, journal notes, provided course materials, and member checks that occurred at multiple points throughout the development of the case and cross-case reports. Contextualization data were included to provide thick, rich descriptions of each case to bolster credibility in this study and help the reader understand the context for each professors’ pedagogical decisions. It was discovered that each professor in this study had a sizable amount of subject matter knowledge in popular music theory, but that most of their useful knowledge for teaching popular music was learned primarily autodidactically. The aural tradition of music transmission, which is influenced by personal interests, sociocultural influences, and experiences in popular music groups, was found to be a prominent part of these professors’ knowledge base. The context in which each professor taught was found to influence their pedagogical decisions and affected their choices of materials, listening examples, and internet-based resources. Students’ sociocultural background and personal goals, along with the vision and mission of the institutions in which the professors taught, were found to be the strongest influencers in the pedagogues of this study. All three professors also valued limiting class size to around 16 students, and preferred formative assessments over summative assessments when evaluating student comprehension. To aid the readers understanding of the implications of the findings of this research, existent resources for popular music pedagogy, such as peer-reviewed databases, journals, compilations, popular music organizations, and current research in the field of popular music pedagogy, are also discussed.

The topic of this thesis is Music in advertising spots. The theoretical part describes advertising history, its theory, strategies, rules and used language. It is followed by purpose of TV commercial and use of instrumental or vocal music which sounds at background. The practical part contains the implementation of music activities into specific lessons for small children at primary school. I focus on vocal, rhythmical or intonation training, improvisation and learning new songs through six TV commercials.

The purpose of this study was to identify potential threshold concepts in the music industry as perceived by expert music industry professionals; the data collected may possibly inform postsecondary music industry degree program curriculum design. Threshold concept theory emerged in the early 2000s largely due to the research of Meyer & Land (2003, 2005) as a means to illuminate discipline-specific criteria that irreversibly transform a learner’s positionality within a professional discipline. Through the mastery of a threshold concept, a learner becomes aware of discipline specific norms, and may experience a reconstitution of their own identity as a professional. This is the first study to explore threshold concepts within the music industry. This study is also aimed to contribute to a growing body of research at the intersection of threshold concepts and business education. Utilizing qualitative research informed by phenomenology, semi-structured interviews based on the primary tenets of the threshold concept theory framework were conducted. “Expert” music industry professionals were asked to reflect upon their lived experiences regarding their assimilation into the music industry and maintenance of a sustainable career in the discipline. The data collected were aligned with the threshold concept theory framework in order to illuminate potential threshold concepts specific to the music industry. Results indicate that there exist possible dispositional and disciplinary threshold concepts relative to becoming a music industry professional. The identification, prioritization, and utilization of threshold concepts are applicable to curriculum planning at both the macro- (program creation, execution, and evaluation) and micro- (course creation, planning, instruction, and evaluation) levels for post-secondary music industry education.

In 2008, the American Academy of Teachers of Singing released a paper in support of further research and training in the teaching of non-classical music or Contemporary Commercial Music (CCM). CCM can be defined as encompassing (but not limited to) the following genres: musical theatre, pop, rock, gospel, R&B, soul, hip-hop, rap, country, folk, and experimental music. Despite the increase in number of musical theatre and CCM degree programs at American universities, and the that national voice pedagogy organizations have begun to include musical theatre competitions and masterclasses, such academic training for future voice teachers has not met the demand. A 2003 survey by LoVetri and Weekly to evaluate the levels of training and experience of voice teachers in CCM styles of singing showed that while 71 schools offered Bachelor’s degrees in Musical Theatre, there were no schools offering CCM voice pedagogy training. In a 2009 follow-up, Weekly and LoVetri found that only 19% of those surveyed had any training to teach Musical Theatre. Additionally, many teachers indicated they were only classically trained and had no idea how to sing in any other style. For this study a three-part survey containing 27 questions was used to survey voice teachers who had been enrolled in or completed graduate-level (MM or DMA) voice programs since the publication of Weekly and LoVetri’s most recent survey. The purpose of the survey was to discover the pedagogical training of recent graduate voice students in CCM. The data is collected from a population in which n=66. While this study did show an increase in pedagogical training in CCM at the graduate university level (26%) as well as an increase in the number of CCM teachers with both graduate-level training and performance experience, this increase was small, and the majority of those who reported having received training did so through private instruction or independent study. / Music Performance

The purpose of this study was to develop a guide to help teach commercial music style imitation, Styles selected were ragtime, dixieland, Whiteman, Goodman, Miller, bop, Berry, Presley, Motown, hard rock, horn band, soft rock, straight ahead big band, Ellington, Basie, country rock, bluegrass, Country-Western, Mantovani, Boston Pops, and Love Unlimited Orchestra. Melody, harmony, rhythm, voicing, instrumentation, form, special effects, performance techniques, electronic alteration, and articulation were discussed for each style. A table summarizing each discussion, and an arrangement and recording of the same melody in each style were included, The guide appears successful, judging from commercial writers' estimations, The work will probably aid writers, performers, researchers, and publishers. Similar works could be done on other commercial and ethnic styles.

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This master thesis describes early attempts at using electroglottography (EGG) to capture such changes in vocal fold vibration patterns that could be of interest to teachers of contemporary commercial music. After initial explorations, focus is placed on detecting potentially detrimental phonation; more specifically on the pressed quality often associated with loud singing in high register (belting). FonaDyn, a program written in the SuperCollider language, is used to detect pressedness using an algorithm based on K-means clustering of Fourier components of EGG cycles. Results indicate that pressedness affects phonation in ways detectable using EGG. Changes caused by pressedness seem to vary between registers and this variation is similar between subjects. Detection of pressedness in a subject is quite successful when training the algorithm on the same subject, but not always across subjects. / Denna masteruppsats beskriver inledande försök att använda elektroglottografi (EGG) för att avläsa sådana förändringar i stämbandens vibrationsmönster som skulle kunna vara av intresse för sånglärare inom icke-klassisk stil. Tidiga undersökningar leder till att fortsatt fokus läggs på att detektera fonationstyper som kan orsaka röstskador; mer specifikt den typ av pressad röstkvalitet som ofta förknippas med stark sång i högt register (s.k. belting). FonaDyn, ett datorprogram skrivet i språket SuperCollider, används för att detektera pressad fonation med hjälp av K-means-klustring av EGG-cykler baserat på deras Fourierkomponenter. Resultaten indikerar att pressad fonation går att urskilja med hjälp av EGG. Kännetecknen för pressad fonation tycks skilja sig mellan röstregister och denna skillnad är snarlik hos olika försökspersoner. Programmet klarar av att känna igen pressad fonation hos samma person som algoritmen tränats på men inte alltid om algoritmen tränats på en annan sångare.

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