Teaching Rock Music as Cultural History: a Pedagogical Model

College music programs face challenges when integrating popular music studies into their course offerings. The aesthetics, priorities, and procedures of pop and rock and thus their pedagogies differ from those of western classical music in ways that must be considered when designing classes. The demographics, technologies, and cultural contexts of the music must be considered. Diversity of college students should be addressed as well. More diverse and inclusive criteria regarding repertoires and genres when building curricula are required. A culture studies approach is practical because it effectively addresses students from a wide range of both musical and non-musical backgrounds. Popular music history is best understood and taught as a pertinent and rich source of cultural understanding. The course models presented in this thesis use rock music history as an example of how this idea can be executed in class design by emphasizing a topics driven curriculum. In this course, students benefit from an understanding of music and culture while gaining and practicing useful college skills. Instructors benefit from a design that can be adapted to many courses and subjects. College music departments that add popular styles to their programs can adapt this model to many styles and art forms.