No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
Learning and teaching the Beatles
Abstract
This article considers Liverpool Hope University’s Master of Arts degree in The Beatles, Popular Music and Society — which was the world’s first academic degree specifically related to the study of the Beatles — through reflective investigation into its structure, pedagogy and foundation in popular music studies. Using the writer’s own experiences as a both a graduate of and lecturer for the programme, the article considers the validity of academic study of the Beatles, the appropriateness of the MA’s approaches to this study and the usefulness of these for current and future Beatles scholarship.
This article was published open access under a CC BY licence: https://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0 .
... The Beatles represent an icon in culture (Tessler and Long, 2022) and it is no exaggeration to say that they influenced the whole world (Collins, 2020). In addition to being a world cultural icon (Lemonnier, 2016), the Beatles are an element of cultural heritage and an important element of tourism in Liverpool (Kinsella and Peters, 2022) and even an object of scientific and study interest (Howard, 2022). Čvirik, Marián. ...
The presented article deals with the aspect of attitudes towards the selected songs as well as the moods it brings with the help of Thayer mood model. The aim of the presented article is (1) to investigate the attitudes towards the selected Beatles album, (2) to investigate the effect of songs on mood using the Mood model, and (3) to investigate the effect of selected demographic factors (age and gender) on the attitude towards the songs and the mood created by the songs from the album ‘Yellow Submarine’ in Slovak conditions. The results indicate that there is a significant link between the cognitive and affective components of attitudes within the selected album. It has also been shown that, in terms of moods, the album brings considerable variety. The results can be used both in the fields of musicology and psychology and as an introduction to the study of audio marketing.
In 1963 William Mann coined the term “aeolian cadence” to describe a harmonic progression in the song “Not a Second Time” by the Beatles. This term has caused confusion ever since. In this article, I discuss why Mann might have used this confusing phrase and how it relates to this song by John Lennon. I will argue that, in the debate that ensued from Mann’s observations, his commentators were primarily preoccupied with terminology and definitions but forgot to listen to Lennon. More specifically, I argue that, if the interplay between the music and lyrics is considered, the famous cadence in “Not a Second Time” can best be interpreted as “deceptive.”
http://www.iaspmjournal.net/index.php/IASPM_Journal/article/view/613
Building on Philip Tagg’s timely intervention (2011), I investigate four things in relation to three dominant Anglophone popular music studies journals (Popular Music and Society, Popular Music, and the Journal of Popular Music Studies): 1) what interdisciplinarity or multidisciplinarity means within popular music studies, with a particular focus on the sites of research and the place of ethnographic and/or anthropological approaches; 2) the extent to which popular music studies has developed canonic scholarship, and the citation tendencies present within scholarship on both Western and non-Western popular musics; 3) the motivations for two scholarly groups, Dancecult and ASARP, to breakaway from popular music studies; 4) the forms of music analysis and the kinds of musical material commonly employed within popular music studies. I suggest that the field would greatly benefit from a true engagement with anthropological theories and methods, and that the “chaotic conceptualization” of musical structuration and the critical discourse would likewise benefit from an attention to recorded sound and production aesthetics.
A Women’s History of the Beatles is the first book to offer a detailed presentation of the band’s social and cultural impact as understood through the experiences and lives of women. Drawing on a mix of interviews, archival research, textual analysis, and autoethnography, this scholarly work depicts how the Beatles have profoundly shaped and enriched the lives of women, while also reexamining key, influential female figures within the group’s history.
Organized topically based on key themes important to the Beatles story, each chapter uncovers the varied and multifaceted relationships women have had with the band, whether face-to-face and intimately or parasocially through mediated, popular culture. Set within a socio-historical context that charts changing gender norms since the early 1960s, these narratives consider how the Beatles have affected women’s lives across three generations. Providing a fresh perspective of a well-known tale, this is a cultural history that moves far beyond the screams of Beatlemania to offer a more comprehensive understanding of what the now iconic band has meant to women over the course of six decades.
This article discusses the reshaping of Liverpool's built environment, reminding us that buildingstake on new uses and meanings as they progress through time, with entertainment spacesemerging and declining as part of the meta-narrative of post-industrial capital. The expansionand repurposing of spaces such as theatres and cinemas are discussed, with 'new' spaces suchas record shops also regarded as assisting in re-establishing empty buildings at crucial times inLiverpool's history. The article consequently aims to encourage the reader to consider how buildingdevelopment directly relates to the emergence of popular music history, particularly in thelate 1950s when a number of key venues in Liverpool emerged. A cogent theme is that specificplaces in cities remind communities of not only where they live, but also who they are and were.
It has taken Liverpool almost half a century to come to terms with the musical, cultural and now economic legacy of the Beatles and popular music. At times the group was negatively associated with sex and drugs images surrounding rock music: deemed unacceptable by the city fathers, and unworthy of their support. Liverpudlian musicians believe that the musical legacy of the Beatles can be a burden, especially when the British music industry continues to brand the latest (white) male group to emerge from Liverpool as ’the next Beatles’. Furthermore, Liverpudlians of perhaps differing ethnicities find images of ’four white boys with guitars and drums’ not only problematic in a ’musical roots’ sense, but for them culturally devoid of meaning and musically generic. The musical and cultural legacy of the Beatles remains complex. In a post-industrial setting in which both popular and traditional heritage tourism have emerged as providers of regular employment on Merseyside, major players in what might be described as a Beatles music tourism industry have constructed new interpretations of the past and placed these in such an order as to re-confirm, re-create and re-work the city as a symbolic place that both authentically and contextually represents the Beatles.
Teaching the Beatles is a collection of fourteen essays that explore various pedagogical approaches to presenting the group to undergraduates.
The Beatles have been finding their way into college courses in a number of interesting ways in recent years. The band and their music have proven to be meaningful points of entry for a wide range of academic investigations, ranging from song lyrics as poetry to understanding the complex working of the music business. This chapter looks at some of the ways the Beatles have been utilized in college classrooms, with a particular emphasis on a case study of a course, The Beatles and the 1960s: The Band, The Music and Their Times, designed to use the Fab Four to better understand the social and political upheavals of that turbulent decade.
The design of learning experiences in higher education is becoming increasingly outcome-led, but there is confusion regarding what constitutes these outcomes, disquiet concerning their ostensible association with behaviourism, and apprehension concerning their implementation. This article traces the evolution of learning outcomes through rational curriculum planning to the development of expressive outcomes, and suggests a definition of learning outcomes which includes subject-based, personal transferable and generic academic outcomes. The three principal criteria of behavioural objectives are analysed in relation to learning outcomes. Outcomes may subsume learning objectives, but the two are not synonymous and learning outcomes are not fettered by the constraints of behaviourism. Learning outcomes represent what is formally assessed and accredited to the student and they offer a starting point for a viable model for the design of curricula in higher education which shifts the emphasis from input and process to the celebration of student learning.
MA: The Beatles, Popular Music and Society
- Michael Brocken
- Brocken Michael
Brocken, Michael (2010) MA: The Beatles, Popular Music and Society
2009/2010 Course Handbook. Unpublished.
- Michael Brocken
- Jeff Daniels
Brocken, Michael and Jeff Daniels (2018) Gordon Stretton: Black British
Transoceanic Jazz Pioneer (London: Lexington).
Taking the mick', The Guardian
- Emma Brockes
Brockes, Emma (2003) 'Taking the mick', The Guardian, 15 January 2003,
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2003/jan/15/education.
highereducation (accessed 18 June 2022).
Cultural shock of an international academic: from a liberal arts education in the United States to a post-1992 university in the UK
- Jennifer Chung
- Chung Jennifer
Chung, Jennifer (2018) 'Cultural shock of an international academic:
from a liberal arts education in the United States to a post-1992
university in the UK', in Academics' International Teaching
Journeys: Personal Narratives of Transitions in Higher Education,
ed. Anesa Hosein, Namrata Roa, Chloe Shu-Hua Yeh and Ian Kinchin
(London: Bloomsbury), 45-60.
Taking notes: mapping and teaching popular music in higher education', technical report for the Higher Education Academy
- Martin Cloonan
- Lauren Hulstedt
Cloonan, Martin and Lauren Hulstedt (2012) 'Taking notes: mapping and
teaching popular music in higher education', technical report for
the Higher Education Academy, York.
2022) personal email to Dori Howard
- Davis Melissa
Davis, Melissa (2022) personal email to Dori Howard, 21 February 2022.
A consideration of the Beatles pound: a history context and a projection of the economics of Beatles tourism in Liverpool
- Durkin Hollie
Durkin, Hollie (2017) A consideration of the Beatles pound: a history,
context and a projection of the economics of Beatles tourism in
Liverpool. MA diss., Liverpool Hope University.
Learning and teaching the Beatles
Whiter shades of grey: continuum and context in the popular music canon, from the Beatles' White Album to Danger Mouse's Grey Album
- Lindsay Eanet
Eanet, Lindsay (2011) Whiter shades of grey: continuum and context in
the popular music canon, from the Beatles' White Album to Danger
Mouse's Grey Album. MA diss., Liverpool Hope University.
Small college, big hopes; UNIVERSITIES ++ Liverpool Hope — Europe’s only ecumenical university — is resisting the urge to expand
- Lucy Hodges
- Hodges Lucy
Hodges, Lucy (2007) 'Small college, big hopes; UNIVERSITIES ++
Liverpool Hope -Europe's only ecumenical university -is
resisting the urge to expand', The Independent, 28 June
2007, https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/small-college-big-hopes-universities-liverpool/docview/311316337/
se-2?accountid=12116 (accessed 27 June 2022).
Esmee (2022) personal email to Dori Howard
- Hoek
Hoek, Esmee (2022) personal email to Dori Howard, 3 March 2022.
The long and winding road to an MA in the Beatles songs
- Sam Jones
- Jones Sam
Jones, Sam (2009) 'The long and winding road to an MA in the Beatles
songs', The Guardian, 4 March 2009, https://www.theguardian.
com/education/2009/mar/04/beatles-higher-education-liverpool-university (accessed 4 February 2022).
A master’s in Paul-is-definitely-not-dead
- Allan Kozinn
- Kozinn Allan
Kozinn, Allan (2009) 'A master's in Paul-is-definitely-not-dead', The New
York Times, 7 March 2009, https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/08/
weekinreview/08kozinn.html (accessed 1 February 2022).
The Casbah and Mona Best: searching for the ‘other
- Maw Helen
Maw, Helen (2018) The Casbah and Mona Best: searching for the 'other'.
MA diss., Liverpool Hope University.
Neleigh (2022) personal email to Dori Howard
- Olson
Olson, Neleigh (2022) personal email to Dori Howard, 27 February 2022.
Lost Women of Rock Music: Female Musicians of the Punk Era
- Helen Reddington
- Reddington Helen
Reddington, Helen (2012) Lost Women of Rock Music: Female Musicians of
the Punk Era (Sheffield: Equinox).
Histories', in Key Terms in Popular Music and Culture
- Gilbert Rodman
Rodman, Gilbert (1999) 'Histories', in Key Terms in Popular Music and
Culture, ed. Bruce Horner and Thomas Swiss (London: Blackwell),
35-45.
Music’s Meanings: A Modern Musicology for Non-Musos
- Philip Tagg
- Tagg Philip
Tagg, Philip (2012) Music's Meanings: A Modern Musicology for Non-Musos
(Huddersfield: The Mass Media Scholars Press).
Mickey Mouse" courses jibe angers students', The Guardian
- Will Woodward
Woodward, Will (2003) '"Mickey Mouse" courses jibe angers students',
The Guardian, 14 January 2003, https://www.theguardian.com/
uk/2003/jan/14/highereducation.accesstouniversity (accessed
18 June 2022).
Cultural Capital: The Beatles in Canada
- Mary-Lu Zahalan
- Zahalan Mary-Lu
Zahalan, Mary-Lu (2011) Cultural Capital: The Beatles in Canada (Manitou
Springs: Beatleworks).
Impossible fan Q&A - four extra questions
- Paulmccartney
- Com
Paulmccartney.com (2014) 'Impossible fan Q&A -four extra questions',
29 December 2014, https://www.paulmccartney.com/news/impossible-fan-qanda-four-extra-questions (accessed 4 May 2022).
Taking notes: mapping and teaching popular music in higher education
- Martin Cloonan
- Lauren Hulstedt
- Cloonan Martin
Studying Popular Music
- Richard Middleton
- Middleton Richard
“Mickey Mouse” courses jibe angers students
- Will Woodward
- Woodward Will
Resource list: study pieces and listening list
- Aqa Org Uk