Rock Music Research Articles

Stories into song: theory and co-creative practice of adapting literary fiction into pop and rock songs

Abstract Despite the many pop and rock songs adapted from literary texts, there has been little scholarship on the theory and practice of adapting novels and short stories into short-form musical works. This article is part of a British Academy-funded pilot project carried out by two researchers at Keele University, UK. Locating story-into-song texts within adaptation studies, it explores the theoretical issues involved in such adaptations; describes the methodology employed in a series of co-creative workshops with volunteers; and analyses the original songs that emerged from the project.

Learning medical sociology through an innovative 'Elective study module' integrating humanities with medicine for undergraduate students of a medical college in Bengaluru, India.

Background The newly introduced 'Elective programme', a voluntary special study module in the final phase of the undergraduate medical curriculum, offers scope for new immersive, self-directed learning opportunities. We describe a programme of study for learning 'medical sociology' through the innovative use of humanities in medicine. Methods Our elective module, called 'Community Health and Rock Music' (CHaRM), was a 2-week programme, merging the curricular subject of community health with 'rock music' as an exposure to the 'counter-culture' outside of the medical world. The half-day sessions consisted of: (i) watching/listening to a rock song-video without reading its lyrics; (ii) listening to the same song again but with lyrics; (iii) undertaking an emotionally stimulating activity (watching a movie, making a site-visit, etc.); and (iv) debriefing, to identify/discuss the underlying social determinants of health and their relevance in the grooming of a socially aware medical student. Formative assessment was intended to gauge levels of expression of the affective domain (attitude/emotions). Results Seven of 143 students volunteered for this programme. Key learnings were a clear appreciation of the societal determinants of health (such as deprivation/discrimination/social structures); multi-level causation of diseases; social issues not addressed in traditional medical curriculum; personal growth; teamwork; and the role of empathy in medical practice. Additional learning was the exposure to the 'counter-culture of arts'. All 7 student assessments 'met expectation', with 4 of them 'exceeding expectation'. Conclusion An 'elective programme' combining humanities with medicine is potentially an innovative, student-centric and replicable model of learning that impacts the affective domain critical for doctors-in-training.

A portrait of self-regulated musical learning behaviors among rock musicians: Applications in music education

Rock music and Western classical music seem very different but musicians in the two cultures may have enough self-regulated musical learning behaviors in common for concurrent application in school-based music education. In this paper, I describe the self-reported self-regulated musical learning behaviors of seven successful rock musicians, compare their behaviors to those expected in the Western classical tradition, and suggest ways to combine norms from both traditions in effective music education programs. Data are collected through digital ethnography methodology from a series of interviews published in YouTube. Emergent themes in the self-regulated musical learning behaviors of rock musicians include (1) passion for music making, (2) the importance of choice, (3) a need for personal control over learning, and (4) an emphasis on musical composition in daily practice.

Less Power to Ya: Materiality and Sublation in Early Christian Rock Music

In studies of the important contemporary Christian music (CCM) subculture within American evangelicalism, scholars have developed an increasingly robust body of sociological analysis; this article bridges from that scholarship to offer a cultural history of how a decentralized group of ex-hippies coalesced to establish a multimillion-dollar industry. Centring the concept of sublation as used by David Morgan, the article adopts a multimethod approach to study how More Power to Ya by Petra—one of the most popular albums from one of the industry’s most influential bands—exemplified the strategy Christian rock artists employed to move from a place of marginalization within evangelical Christianity to one of acceptance.

Rockin’ in the Ivory Tower: Rock Music on Campus in the Sixties by James M. Carter (review)

Rockin’ in the Ivory Tower: Rock Music on Campus in the Sixties by James M. Carter (review)

Makna Patriotisme dalam Lirik Lagu Rock Indonesia

This study aims to construct the meaning of patriotism in Indonesian rock song lyrics using Charles Sanders Pierce's semiotic approach. The analyzed songs are "Jadilah Legenda" by Superman Is Dead, "Garuda di Dadaku" by Netral, "Bendera" by Cokelat, and "Dari Mata Sang Garuda" by Pee Wee Gaskins. This research employs a descriptive qualitative method by analyzing the song lyrics based on Pierce's semiotic theory, which divides signs into trichotomies: qualisign, sinsign, and legisign; as well as icon, index, and symbol; and also rheme, dicent sign, and argument. The results show that Indonesian rock song lyrics have complex and rich forms and meanings of patriotism. Through the use of semiotic signs, the lyrics not only express love and pride for the homeland but also invite listeners to actively participate in preserving and fighting for national values. This study provides significant contributions to understanding how Indonesian rock music can serve as a medium for expressing patriotism and a tool to inspire collective action within society

Vibrato in the modern pop-music: technological and performing aspects

In the center of the author’s attention is one of the most important vocal methods – the vibrato widely used both in the professional music of academic tradition, especially in the opera genre, as well as in various genres of pop-music, rock or jazz. The author examines the physiological aspects of the given method, explains how the sound is emitted when vibrato is applied. Types of realization of this procedure are differentiated: with the oscillation of the sound in the ascending or descending direction, with the oscillation of the vocal „mask” or of the vocal cords, etc. The author proposes some exercises that can be useful for developing the skills of correct vibrato application. Likewise, the differences of vibrato in classical music and pop-music, rock or jazz are demonstrated. As far as the styles and genres of pop music are concerned, the use of the given process is mainly evidenced in the vocal ballad genre, adding an emotional depth to the performance, emphasizing the color of the voice and easing the emission of the vocal sound. So, the vibrato technique is an important component of any contemporary vocalist’s arsenal.

Khe Sanh and Jung

Abstract This paper looks at the 2015 use of the Australian rock song Khe Sanh by far-right nationalist group Reclaim Australia and how it points to deeper archetypal dynamics at play, which are driving the appearance and behaviour of groups like this. Drawing from the work of Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung, I treat the song as an expression of the archetype of the fallen hero, who confronts darkness but cannot reintegrate back into the social world and, instead, remains fallen. As I discuss, this song resonates deeply with Reclaim Australia members because it reflects their own ideological conceptions of their place in the changing Australian nation. I use a Jungian archetypal approach because it allows us to explore the underlying psychic structure and instinctive patterns that drive the behaviour of groups like this. Where other approaches may simply focus on the behaviour, an archetypal approach goes much deeper, addressing the root of the behaviour.

A Study on the Singing Forms of Western Rock Music Integrating Classical Cultural Elements

Rock and roll is not only a form of music, but also a "attitude and philosophy of life". It is precisely because of this that rock and roll is different from general pop music, and there are various differences between Chinese and Western rock and roll. Rock music has many branches and complex forms. Its main styles include folk rock, art rock, psychedelic rock, Country rock, heavy metal, punk, etc. This article studies the singing forms of Western rock music that integrate classical cultural elements. People who listen to classical music "despise" the "vulgarity" of rock and roll, and people who play rock and roll "dislike" the "affectation" of classical music. These two music styles, which seem to never blend together, always maintain a proud attitude of respecting each other in their respective music culture circles. The extensive use of words with classical cultural elements and cultural imagery in rock music works can allow viewers to develop a sense of closeness and identification with the national essence reflected in the work from an aesthetic psychological perspective, and have a deeper understanding of the ideas expressed in the work.

Robbed or Released by the Pandemic? The Dynamics of Integrating and Situating Musician Identity Learning

The aim of this paper is to contribute to a better understanding of musician identity learning. Identity is a significant driving-force behind many artistic vocations. However, identity may also pose challenges such as vulnerability, burnout and conflict of commitment. The paper focuses on musician identity, based on interviews with classical and rock musicians during the COVID-19 pandemic. Analyses reveal that the musicians are either in integrating or situating musician identity learning, two different processes discussed as dynamically interrelated and depending on life situation. The paper argues that breaks of normality accentuate challenges stemming from musician identity and that the proposed learning processes are responses to those challenges, which is previously under-explored. The paper concludes that many musicians or other artistic practitioners likely struggle to de-centralize their identity in order to foster a sustainable vocational career and personal growth, and that temporary career breaks may provide necessary relief and learning space.

Rocking Across Borders : An Analysis of the Musical Differences between Bangladesh and West-Bengal Rock Songs Using Spotify Audio Features

Rocking Across Borders : An Analysis of the Musical Differences between Bangladesh and West-Bengal Rock Songs Using Spotify Audio Features

Rock and China: From Cui Jian to Second Hand Rose

Whether its mainland Chinas Hao Fang or Taiwans Zhang Tiezhi, they are both committed to constructing a resistance narrative to describe the rise and development of rock music. [1] Zhang Tiezhi believes that the emergence of rock music in mainland China has already carried the banner of enlightenment. [2] He also mentioned that rock music, together with poetry, films, the documentary River Elegy, and the book series Toward the Future, collectively constituted the enlightenment power of the chaotic era. [2] However, as part of the cultural mosaic of mainland China in the 1980s, how was rock music shaped, reconstructed, and utilized in the power system of commerce, culture, and politics? How does rock music interact and create tension with other cultural phenomena? With the tremendous changes in Chinese society in the 21st century, facing different historical contexts, has Chinese rock music also undergone changes? Unfortunately, Zhang did not delve into these questions seriously, and at the same time, mainland Chinese rock musicians have not included these questions in their thinking. This paper selects Cui Jian and the Second Hand Rose band as representatives of Chinese rock music in different periods. Through the theoretical perspectives of political philosophy, sociology, and history, it analyzes their lyrical texts and historical backgrounds, delving into Cui Jians unique understanding of revolution and capitalism as a rock superstar of the 1980s, and how this understanding has shaped the unique sensory structure of Chinese rock musicians. At the same time, this paper aims to provide some insights for the future development of Chinese rock music.

Welcome to My Nightmare (I Think You’re Gonna Like It): Hermeneutics of Horror in Alice Cooper’s Metamodern Menagerie of Age

In this article, I analyze three elements of shock rocker Alice Cooper’s musical theatrics – his vocal caricatures, his menagerie of self-reflective monsters, and his stylized choreography of mobility tools (particularly canes and crutches) – that give insight into the ways that he has navigated and expressed fluctuations in perspective on age(ing). Over the past half century, his stage persona has died on stage thousands of times—via guillotine, electric chair, hanging, or otherwise— but he has never had to get “old”. Every night, the character is reborn, revived, or reanimated: eighteen years old, even as the performer himself reaches twenty-one, thirty, and now seventy-five. This work— building especially on Mikhail Bahktin’s “grotesque”, Anne Basting’s sociology of age in theatre, and the study of opera, disability, and monsters – serves as an post-postmodern opportunity to consider unarticulated ways Classic Rock musicians contending with and re-present the genre’s founding themes through musicking.

Distortion and Subversion: Punk Rock Music and the Protests for Free Public.Transportation in Brazil (1996-2011)

Distortion and Subversion: Punk Rock Music and the Protests for Free Public.Transportation in Brazil (1996-2011)

Musical Preferences among Students Aged 9–19: A Study on Musical Genres and Styles

This study aimed to explore students’ musical genre preferences, exploring variations across gender and age groups in Hungary. Additionally, we investigated the relationships among the popularity of musical genres and connections between musical programs and related activities. With the help of stratified sampling, we examined the opinions of students aged 9–19 about each genre (N = 1159) using specific musical examples. In this study, musical genres were classified into four main types based on related music videos, including classical popular music (CPM), rock music (RM), classical art music (CAM), and folk music (FM). Different types of analyses, such as t-tests, one-way and two-way ANOVAs, and correlational analyses such as correlation coefficients (r), chi-square tests, and eta squares, were employed in this study. The results showed that the popularity of the four pieces of music classified as CPM, RM, CAM, and FM had a moderately strong correlation with each other. The correlations between FM, CPM, and RM did not differ from each other, but they showed significantly weaker correlation values than the correlation between FM and CAM. Moreover, significant differences were found in the students’ perceptions of the genres based on their gender and age groups. Among the four performances, the girls had a greater preference compared to the boys for each one, except for the folk music piece. The youngest age group (9–12) showed the highest preference for the CPM, although the difference compared to the oldest age group (17–19) was not statistically significant. Therefore, this study is beneficial for music education, focusing on students’ genre preferences, including CPM, RM, CAM, and FM.

Auditory risk recognition is socially transmitted across territory borders in wild birds

Prey species commonly assess predation risk based on acoustic signals, such as predator vocalizations or heterospecific alarm calls. The resulting risk-sensitive decision-making affects not only the behavior and life-history of individual prey, but also has far-reaching ecological consequences for population, community, and ecosystem dynamics. Although auditory risk recognition is ubiquitous in animals, it remains unclear how individuals gain the ability to recognize specific sounds as cues of a threat. Here, it has been shown that free-living birds (Wood Warblers Phylloscopus sibilatrix) can learn to recognize unfamiliar, complex sounds (samples of punk rock songs) as cues of a threat from conspecifics holding adjacent territories during the spring breeding season. In a playback experiment, Wood Warblers initially ignored the unfamiliar sounds, but after repeatedly hearing that these sounds trigger alarm calling reaction of neighbors, most individuals showed an anti-predator response to them. Moreover, once learned soon after nestlings hatching, the anti-predator response of parents toward previously unfamiliar sounds was then retained over the entire nestlings rearing period. These results demonstrate that social learning via the association of unfamiliar sounds with known alarm signals enables the spread of anti-predator behavior across territory borders and provides a mechanism explaining the widespread abilities of animals to assess predation risk based on acoustic cues.

Перемен требуют наши сердца. Образ рок-музыканта в позднесоветском кинематографе

The article analyses the image of a rock musician in the late Soviet and modern Russian cinema. Having appeared on screen in the mid-80s, a rock musician character type immediately had a cult following. The image represented a hero of the then-new time, a singer of freedom, a bearer of a different, “correct” pro-Western worldview, starting from the appearance and ending with the philosophy of life, and a symbol of disagreement not only with the generation of fathers but also with the then-existing, “wrong” world order in general. A rock musician in the perestroika cinema was a typical rebel character who appeared in the world cinema at the turn of epochs. The author of the article formulates the cultural codes behind the representation of such a character type on screen, traces its transformation, and comes to the conclusion that the meanings behind a rock musician character type are gradually losing their immediate relevance in modern Russian cinema.

An inspiring journey

Rock musician Mikko von Hertzen speaks with Dental Nursing about his position as a psoriasis and oral health advocate.

From Granary to Arts Incubator: An Evolutionary Perspective on the Concept of Food for Thought

Does our food for thought come virtually from the internet? When we take a long view, the instant stroke of a keyboard pales in comparison to the centuries-old evolution of real food harvesting and the generation and exchange of ideas, which have resulted in creative capital. The vernacular architecture of the agricultural built environment has almost dematerialized in its transition from the ancient pre-industrial era to the post-truth world, to become almost only an imagined concept. The symbology of the common threshing terrace of a Portuguese remote mountain village can now be found in multiple spaces of the urban realm, including in the metaphor of a community arts incubator’s modus operandi in Albany, New York (USA). How has the concept of food for thought developed and materialized? How has it evolved? And what are some of the expected ways it might be utilized in the future? The purpose of the paper is to trace the evolution of this concept and its elements via the BLC Framework. The methodology employs a time analysis of approximately three centuries to distinguish three distinct evolutionary phases: (i) the pre-industrial era, (ii) the industrial era, and (iii) the information-driven era. The key finding is an up-to-date discussion of the food for thought concept in two distinct geographical worlds and three-time eras, as well as a set of lessons learned according to a protest poem and a rock song. The results are presented in the form of five lessons learned with implications for public policy: the first two lessons pertain to issues of procedural justice as encapsulated in the anonymous ‘The Goose’ poem, while the last three result from a discussion of selected verses in Nick Cave’s ‘Fable of the Brown Ape’ rock song.

Features of metaphors in song discourse based on the texts of rock musicians

This article is devoted to the study of some linguistic and stylistic features of the English and Russian-language song discourse. The study is based on examples taken from the rock band songs. The lyrics of the songs were analyzed for the use of such a linguistic means of expression as metaphor. Research has shown that both Russian and English-speaking authors often use this linguo-stylistic means of expressiveness during the writing of their musical works to give euphony, a special expressive coloring and to convey their emotional state. It was revealed that song lyrics are an important element of musical culture and can convey to listeners not only musical, but also socio-political and philosophical ideas, while using various metaphorical constructions to give a vivid image. The article considers the impact on the imagination, emotions of the Russian and English-speaking listener through the use of metaphor and how this linguistic means draws attention to a certain feature of the described phenomenon and reflects the author’s attitude to the text.