Popular Music
Welcome to the Popular Music Performance section! This page highlights resources for Popular Music students. There is a whole section on Songwriting below.
Books
Performing Popular Music by Call Number: OnlinePublication Date: 2019Discusses the unwritten rules of performances in popular music, what it takes to create a memorable performance, and live popular music as a creative industry. The authors offer a practical overview of topics ranging from rehearsals to stagecraft, and "what to do when things go wrong". Includes chapters on promotion, recordings, and the music industry place performance in the context of building a career, for example, chapter 3, "The role of personal practice in preparing for your performance.
A Blaze of Light in Every Word: analyzing the popular singing voice by Call Number: OnlinePublication Date: 2020
The Vocal Athlete: Application and Technique for the Hybrid Singer by Call Number: OnlinePublication Date: 2014
Vocal Science for Elite Singers by Call Number: Online and Print at 783 T146V 2018Publication Date: 2018
Popular singing : a practical guide to pop, jazz, blues, rock, country and gospel by Call Number: Online and Print 782.4216414 S718P 2006Publication Date: 2006
Singing with Your Whole Self: a singer's guide to Feldenkrais awareness through movement by
Singing with Your Whole Self: A Singer's Guide to Awareness through Movement teaches performers to use the Feldenkrais Method of neuromuscular education to ameliorate problems of tension, muscle strain, and illness in order to obtain optimal vocal performance. With new lessons and chapters on kinesthetic imagination and neuroplasticity, this second edition features unique, modularized Feldenkrais lessons designed specifically to liberate function in singers and other voice professionals. The first part of the book presents the theory behind the approach in an easy-to-understand and concrete fashion. The remaining chapters explore anatomy by area and explain usage and problems, as well as how both relate to singing. Finally, an appendix allows performers to find lessons that are most effective for a specific problem. As a valuable exercise guide, the second edition of Singing with Your Whole Self is an essential resource for singers at all levels and in all styles.
Call Number: EbookPublication Date: 2018
Principles of Voice Production by Call Number: Hargrave Andrew library 612.78 T623P 2000Publication Date: 2000
Soul covers: rhythm and blues remakes and the struggle for artistic identity by Call Number: OnlinePublication Date: 2007
Ella Fitzgerald: A Biography of the First Lady of Jazz (Updated Edition) by Call Number: OnlineISBN: 9780306806421Publication Date: 2004
Louis Armstrong, in His Own WordsPublication Date: 1999
Scars of Sweet Paradise: the life and times of Janis Joplin by Call Number: OnlnePublication Date: 2000
Expressiveness in Music Performance by Call Number: Click link above for Online Access
The Cambridge Companion to Blues and Gospel Music by Call Number: 781.643 M821C 2002Publication Date: Online
So You Want to Sing Gospel by Call Number: on orderPublication Date: 2016
So You Want to Sing Blues by Call Number: On orderPublication Date: 2018
Now I Can Dance by Call Number: 782.42164092 A681N 2013
I'm Talking by Call Number: 782.42164092 C387.I 2014
Casey DonovanCall Number: 782.42164092 D687B 2014
Acting in Musical Theatre by
Acting in Musical Theatre remains the only complete course in approaching a role in a musical. It covers fundamental skills for novice actors, practical insights for professionals, and even tips to help veteran musical performers refine their craft. Updates in this expanded and revised second edition include: A brand new companion website for students and teachers, including Powerpoint lecture slides, sample syllabi, and checklists for projects and exercises. Learning outcomes for each chapter to guide teachers and students through the book's core ideas and lessons New style overviews for pop and jukebox musicals Extensive updated professional insights from field testing with students, young professionals, and industry showcases Full-colour production images, bringing each chapter to life Acting in Musical Theatre's chapters divide into easy-to-reference units, each containing group and solo exercises, making it the definitive textbook for students and practitioners alike.
Call Number: Online - on order Print at 792.6028 D312APublication Date: 2015-
Musical Theatre Song by
Musical Theatre Song is a handbook for musical theatre performers, providing them with the wide-ranging skill set they need for success in today's competitive musical theatre environment. Breaking down the process into knowing how to select your song material based upon your individuality and how to prepare and perform it in a manner that best highlights your attributes, Stephen Purdy provides a succinct and personalized trajectory toward presentation, taking the reader through a series of challenges that is designed to evoke original, personal and vibrant song performances. Written by renowned Broadway and West End vocal and audition coach Stephen Purdy, Musical Theatre Song is a must-have guide for all performers who are looking to succeed in the musical theatre industry.
Call Number: OnlinePublication Date: 2016
Music Production and Recording
Repetition and Performance in the Recording Studio by Call Number: OnlinePublication Date: 2024In the recording popular music performers often produce multiple takes, using particular strategies to vary outcomes in search of the 'perfect take'. This book presents data from a recording session in conjunction with an autoethnographic text to provide a demonstration of how evolving external cues, and internal cognitive scripts interact with technology and social conventions in the recording studio to impact a popular music musician's performance and, in effect, the creation of a new Work.
Sonic technologies : Popular music, digital culture and the creative process by Call Number: OnlinePublication Date: 2020Looks at how digital technologies have fundamentally changed the way we think about, make and use popular music with a specific focus upon the impact of digitization upon creativity; that is, what musicians, cultural producers and prosumers do. For many, music production has moved out of the professional recording studio and into the home. Examines how contemporary creative practice is shaped by the visual and sonic look and feel of recording technologies such as Digital Audio Workstations..
Coproduction in the recording studio: Perspectives from the vocal booth by Call Number: OnlinePublication Date: 2021Details how recording studio environments affect performance in the vocal booth, drawing on interviews with professional session singers. Considers sociocultural and sociotechnical theory, the modern home studio space, as well as isolation and self-recording in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Women in Audio by Call Number: OnlinePublication Date: 2019Almost 100 profiles and stories of audio engineers who are accomplished women in various audio fields: radio, sound for film and television, music recording and electronic music, hardware and software design, acoustics, live sound and sound for theater, education, audio for games, virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality as well as immersive sound.
Dawn of the DAW: The studio as musical instrument by Call Number: OnlinePublication Date: 2018Looks at DIY recording practices within the context of recording history and discusses the concept of "the studio as musical instrument" and the role of the producer, detailing how processes have evolved throughout the history of recorded music. Examples of current practices of DIY recording--how recording technologies are incorporated into music making, and how they are learned by DIY studio users in Brooklyn. Includes a summary of different models of learning and approaches to music making.
Songwriting
Great Songwriting Techniques by Call Number: OnlinePublication Date: 2018This book from a composer and teacher offers on the key elements of songwriting from melody, harmony, and rhythm to more advanced topics like lyric placement and tone texture. Chapters explore loop-based harmonic patterns, tone tendencies, form, function, and lyric writing. There are great examples of songwriting from well-known artists such as Irving Berlin, Prince, Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Justin Timberlake, and Taylor Swift.
Women in the Studio: Creation Control and Gender in Popular Music Sound by Call Number: OnlinePublication Date: 2019Wolfe brings an invaluable perspective as both a working artist-producer and as a scholar, thereby offering a new body of research based on interviews and first hand observation. Wolfe demonstrates that women's work in the creation and control of sound presents a potent challenge to gender stereotyping, marginalisation and containment of women's achievements that is still in evidence in music marketing practices and media representation in the digital era.
Composing for Voice: Exploring Voice, Language and Music by Call Number: OnlinePublication Date: 2018Composing for Voice examines the voice across a wide range of musical genres (including pop, jazz, folk, classical, opera and the musical) and explores the fusion of language and music that is unique to song.
Writing Better Lyrics: the essential guide to powerful songwriting by Call Number: OnlinePublication Date: 2010This book provides effective tools for everything from generating ideas, to understanding the form and function of a song, to fine-tuning lyrics. It includes 50 songwriting exercises, and examples from more than 20 chart-toppings songs.
The Cambridge Companion to the Singer-Songwriter by Call Number: 782.4209 W724C 2016 and Online
Songwriting by Call Number: Online and Print at 782.4216413 C581S 2008
The Songwriting Sourcebook by Call Number: 782.4213 R777S 2011
Tunesmith by Call Number: 782.4216413 W366T 1998
How to Be a Hit Songwriter by Call Number: 782.4216413 L529H 2003
Popular Voice Sources
- The Compleat Beatlesv. 1. 1962-1966 -- v. 2. 1966-1970.
For piano with guitar chord diagrams, arranged and edited by Milton Okun
Piano divas charting hits: piano, vocal, guitar by Call Number: S783.242164 S252PISBN: 9781863677417Publication Date: 20116 great songs from the finest female artists of the 21st century transcribed for guitar. Includes chord symbols. In standard notation and tablature.
Essential Songs - the Beatles by Call Number: P780 VS B369.1 BEAPublication Date: 2006Over 90 Beatles songs for voice and piano, with chord symbols and guitar chord diagrams.
The Essential Leonard Cohen by Call Number: P780 VS C678.1 ESSPublication Date: 200331 songs from Leonard Cohen's 2002 album "The essential Leonard Cohen."
For voice and piano, with guitar chord symbols. Words and music mostly by Leonard Cohen.
Billy Joel Complete - Volume 1 and 2 by Call Number: SF780 J64 4/CPublication Date: 1988Over 50 songs from Joel's first 5 albums now revised to include all the songs from Cold Spring Harbor. For voice and piano, with guitar chord symbols and diagrams.
Pat Metheny - One Quiet Night by Call Number: P780 DT M592 ONEPublication Date: 2005Recorded Versions transcribed for guitar. Includes chord symbols. In standard notation and tablature.). All 12 songs from the 2003 acoustic guitar recording by Metheny.
Andrew Lloyd Webber - Unmasked: the Platinum Collection, Deluxe Edition by Call Number: OnlinePublication Date: 2018For one or more voices and piano, with chord symbols and guitar chord diagrams. Released to celebrate a 50-year career of composing classic Broadway musicals and contemporary works.
The Essential Andrew Lloyd Webber Collection (Vol. 1 and 2) by Call Number: SF780 L793 26/AnPublication Date: 199841 songs from his best loved productions arranged for voice and piano.
100 years of popular music (18 vol.) by Call Number: SF783.242164 C965.OPublication Date: 2003For voice and piano, with guitar chord symbols.
Voices Found: Free Jazz and Singing by
Voices Found: Free Jazz and Singing contributes to a wave of voice studies scholarship with the first book-length study of free jazz voice. It pieces together a history of free jazz voice that spans from sound poetry and scat in the 1950s to the more recent wave of free jazz choirs. The author traces the developments and offers a theory, derived from interviews with many of the most important singers in the history of free jazz voice, of how listeners have experienced and evaluated the often unconventional vocal sounds these vocalists employed. This theory explains that even audiences willing to enjoy harsh sounds from saxophones or guitars often resist when voices make sounds that audiences understand as not-human. Experimental poetry and scat were combined and transformed in free jazz spaces in the 1960s and 1970s by vocalists like Yoko Ono (in solo work and her work with Ornette Coleman and John Stevens), Jeanne Lee (in her solo work and her work with Archie Shepp and Gunter Hampel), Leon Thomas (in his solo work as well as his work with Pharoah Sanders and Carlos Santana), and Phil Minton and Maggie Nicols (who devoted much of their energy to creating unaccompanied free jazz vocal music). By studying free jazz voice we can learn important lessons about what we expect from the voice and what happens when those expectations are violated. This book doesn't only trace histories of free jazz voice, it makes an attempt to understand why this story hasn't been told before, with an impressive breadth of scope in terms of the artists covered, drawing on research from the US, Canada, Wales, Scotland, France, The Netherlands, and Japan.
Call Number: OnlinePublication Date: 2019
So You Want to Sing Jazz: A Guide for Professionals by
Since the 1930s jazz has stood tall in American popular music, drawing into its embrace not only great horn players, percussionists, guitarists, bassists, and pianists, but also some of the greatest singers in America's musical history. Jazz has laid the groundwork for important innovations in modern singing, opening up entirely new ways of delivering songs through what would eventually become jazz standards--songs that formed the basis of the American Songbook. In So You Want to Sing Jazz, singer and professor of voice Jan Shapiro gives a guided tour through the art and science of the jazz vocal style. Throughout, Shapiro hones in on what makes jazz singing distinctive, suggesting along the way how other types of singers can make use of jazz. She looks at such key matters in jazz singing as the role of improvisation, the place of specific singers who influenced and even defined vocal jazz as we know it today, and the unique way in which jazz incorporates vibrato, conversational delivery, rhythmic phrasing, and melodic embellishment and improvisation. The book includes guest-authored chapters by singing voice researchers Dr. Scott McCoy and Dr. Wendy LeBorgne. In So You Want to Sing Jazz, singers and voice teachers finally have the go-to resource they need for singing vocal jazz. The So You Want to Sing series is produced in partnership with the National Association of Teachers of Singing. Like all books in the series, So You Want to Sing Jazz features online supplemental material on the NATS website. Please visit www.nats.org to access style-specific exercises, audio and video files, and additional resources.
Call Number: OnlinePublication Date: 2016
The New Broadway Song Companion: An annotated guide to musical theatre literature by voice type and song style by
Designed with the working actor in mind, the volume lists every song from over 300 Broadway shows, including at least 90 more than the first edition. Organized by show, each song is annotated with the name of the character(s) who sing(s) the song, the vocal range, and a style category, such as uptempo, narrative ballad, swing ballad, moderate character piece, etc. Several indexes are supplied, organizing the songs by voice type (soprano, baritone, etc.) and song style, vocal arrangement (duets, trios, chorus, etc.), and composer and lyricist, allowing increased access to the repertoire. For instance, a soprano looking for a ballad to sing will find every song in that category in the index. All solos, duets, and trios are indexed in this manner, with quartets and larger ensembles listed by voice type. Furthermore, the instant breakdowns (how many lead characters, who sings what song, and the range requirements of each character) will be a valuable resource to directors and producers.
Call Number: EbookPublication Date: 2009
Learning from books on technique can be part of study plans, learning journals, reflective practice and writing.
Chris McNulty offers videos on her VCM website:
https://www.chrismcnulty.com/vcm-the-book
- Andrew Lloyd Webber - Unmasked: the Platinum Collection, Deluxe Edition by Call Number: OnlineISBN: 9781540045454Publication Date: 2018
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: the New Musical Songbook by Call Number: OnlinePublication Date: 2018
Streamed Video
- 25 Tracks 25 are two unknown, indie songwriters in a bare bones studio in the industrial West of Melbourne - Australia’s music capital. They have a studio set-up which is a piece of Melbourne history - a 1957 train carriage, lovingly restored, fitted out with a Tiki Bar and parked in the Newport Workshop, surrounded by the history of Victoria’s railways. Cath Sheahan is a Melbourne songwriter musician who plays bass. Nick Larkins is a Melbourne indie veteran, from bands including Wild Pumpkins At Midnight, Dan Rumour & The Drift (Cruel Sea), and Monique Brumby.
- Bowie The Man Who Changed The World Featuring contributions from those who collaborated with him and archive interviews with the great man himself, BOWIE is a fascinating exploration of the life and inspiration of a true rock and roll icon who inspired a whole generation to become heroes.
- All by Myself The Eartha Kitt Story Known worldwide for her raspy, sultry voice and theatrical performance style, Eartha delivers nothing less in her conversations and social outings. Accompanied by her daughter Kitt, we first see Eartha attend and perform at President Reagan's Inaugural Ball, where she joyously greets friends and fans.
- Who Do You Think You Are? Kate Ceberano After years of being asked where she found her passion for music, finally she knows""it is in her genes. Kate will cross cities and cultures in the search for her past, uncovering pioneers and colonialists along the way. Venturing back six generations, the experience convinces Kate that she should continue along her path, making music for others to enjoy.
- B.L.A.C.K an Aboriginal song of hip-hop Through interview and observation the so"ng is visually and dialectically deconstructed to speak of contemporary issues around Aboriginal blackness, politics and culture. the filmmaker with his own roots in hip hop aligns himself with Wire and through a rapped narrative adds another layer of complexity to notions of blackness, by pulling apart his own identity."
Online Resources
Online Resources at Monash University Library
Bloomsbury popular music module provides scholarly coverage of modern popular music worldwide, covering the mid-20th century to the present day, through the Bloomsbury Enyclopedia of Popular Music of the World, an expanding range of scholarly books and the 33 1/3 and Global 33 1/3 series.
Go to E-Journals to find articles which you may be able to use in your reflective writing.
Voice and Speech Review contains a number of ejournal articles on the Estill Voice Method and by authors such as Ingo Titze.
For example:
'Vocal Traditions: Estill Voice Training' by Kimberly Steinhauer and Mary Mcdonald Klimek, 2019.
'The Rational and and History of Vocology' by Ingo Titze, 2019.
For example: The Story of Popular Music
We have access to episodes 4-16-of this series directed by Tony Palmer. Each episode charts the history of American popular music using a different genre of music, from ragtime, rhythm 'n' blues, musical theatre, folk, swing, country and western, rock'n'roll and beyond. The series features rare interviews with the most significant musicians of the 20th century.
In the Frame
Episodes feature Lou Bennett, Gail Mabo, Shellie Morris, Casey Donovan, Last Kinection, Busby Marou, and Street Warriors.
Here is a link to an interesting thesis from the University's Research Repository. It follows a Practice-Led Research approach:
- Perfect Beat The name Perfect Beat is derived from Afrika Bambaata and the Soul Sonic Force's 12-inch, 1983 single Looking for the Perfect Beat. The journal's association with the popular cultural quest and mixed, eclectic references of the song are reflected in the articles that have appeared so far which have often concerned themselves with 'world beat' and/or 'world music' and the marketing of non-western musics in the western market and the analysis of local music production.
- Popular Music Popular Music is an international multi-disciplinary journal covering all aspects of the subject - from the formation of social group identities through popular music, to the workings of the global music industry, to how particular pieces of music are put together. The journal includes all kinds of popular music, whether rap or rai, jazz or rock, from any historical era and any geographical location.
- Journal of Singing The official journal of National Association of Teachers of Singing provides current information regarding the teaching of singing as well as results of recent research in the field. A refereed journal, it serves as an historical record and is a venue for teachers of singing and other scholars to share the results of their work in areas such as history, diction, voice science, medicine, and especially voice pedagogy.
Voice and Speech Review contains a number of ejournal articles on the Estill Voice Method and by authors such as Ingo Titze.
For example:
Vocal Traditions: Estill Voice Training by Kimberly Steinhauer and Mary Mcdonald Klimek, 2019.
The Rational and and History of Vocology by Ingo Titze, 2019.
- The Journal of Beatles Studies The Journal of Beatles Studies is the first journal to establish The Beatles as an object of academic research, and will publish original, rigorously researched essays, notes, as well as book and media reviews.
- Music online. Smithsonian global sound for libraries This link opens in a new window
- Music online. Contemporary world music This link opens in a new window
- Naxos music library. Jazz This link opens in a new window
- Kanopy This link opens in a new window
Practice-Led-Research and Research-Led-Practice
Many recent theses are examples of practice-led-research.
An excellent Monash doctoral thesis completed in 2015 by Lisa Young is:
The Eternal Pulse: Creating with Konnakkol and its Adaptation into Contemporary Vocal Performance