History of Rock/Rap Class

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willhouk
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History of Rock/Rap Class

Post by willhouk » Wed Oct 03, 2012 12:46 pm

Hello Tape Op folk. By profession I am a history teacher and my school let me teach a History of Rock/Rap class this year. It's going well so far. I asked my students what they'd be interested in learning more about and one thing that came up was the recording process.

I thought this community might have some interesting suggestions or ideas on resources for recording history. Web sites, books, things like that would be great. I have a number of Tape Op back issues I can use. I also thought about the possibility of doing a field trip to a local studio. We watched a documentary on the making of "Dark Side of the Moon" and it had footage of Pink Floyd recording. I think that sparked their interest.

Any ideas would be great. Thanks.

ps I wasn't sure what forum to post this is. It seemed the most appropriate.
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Gregg Juke
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Post by Gregg Juke » Wed Oct 03, 2012 1:02 pm

Hey Will,

I teach a class called "H3" (History of Hip-Hop). Let me know if you want to see a syllabus.

There are some decent helps available at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame website (www.rockhall.com). They also offer summer teacher institutes. You may also want to check out an excellent on-line resource called Reason to Rock (www.reasontorock.com). If you can get ahold of any of the old "RockSchool" PBS videos, some of them are very helpful.

A lot of Middle and HS books/workbooks/resources are kind of cheesey, but it depends on how high-functioning your students are; there are some awesome college-level materials.

As to more technically-specific info and field-trips to a recording studio, that really depends on the kids too (also, how many you have). I do a lot of project-based stuff with small groups. The large group I took to a commercial recording studio years ago was mostly bored, although we even staged a session for them and gave them an opportunity to add a part to the recording. But the radio stations that we have visited seem to have been bigger hits; not sure why, but they can probably conceptually make the connection to "superstardom" more easily through the media/broadcast situation than with the studio thing-- most kids that do know anything about production nowadays think that "you can do all of that with a laptop now anyway..."

I wrote a series of articles/entries for a music encyclopedia several years back, including stories on the topics of "Recording," "Record Production," and "Producers." If you can find a three-volume set called "20th Century Music A-Z" at your local library or college library, that might prove helpful in some way.

GJ

willhouk
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Post by willhouk » Thu Oct 04, 2012 6:32 am

Gregg thank you for the suggestions. There's some good stuff in there. I would be interested in seeing your syllabus maybe you could PM me and email it to me. I never would have thought about the idea of a radio station so I might look into that.

For the rap portion of the class my plan was to use this book as a resource
http://www.amazon.com/The-Anthology-Rap ... ogy+of+rap It's called the Anthology of Rap. Are you familiar with it? Good, bad?
Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.

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Gregg Juke
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Post by Gregg Juke » Thu Oct 04, 2012 6:56 am

Hey Will,

I'm not familiar with it, but I'll check it out, it looks like it might be interesting.

I'll PM you my e-mail address, and we can go from there...

GJ

Adam Chesi
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Post by Adam Chesi » Sat Nov 10, 2012 3:10 pm

I'd get in touch with Mark Rubel as he does an excellent job teaching the rock portion of a (general education)* course entitled, "The Evolution of Jazz & Rock" at EIU.

One of the things that he would do that seemed to get the most interest from the students was bringing in bands and doing a recording or a mini-concert in the class. He had friends from the local music scene come in and play. He even had a (recently deceased) Beatles impersonator come in and record to a 4-track tape machine doing every part himself (except the claps, which the whole class did).

*I raise this point because the students were not truly oriented towards music and often times chose the class as it was the most interesting sounding one that met their core requirements.
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Gregg Juke
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Post by Gregg Juke » Sat Nov 10, 2012 5:06 pm

Certain things that work on the collegiate level may not work as well in Middle or Secondary school, but it's worth a shot. I did some of the very things Adam described my first few years of teaching, and the kids were basically non-plused, and that was quite a few years before the digital/home studio/GarageBand revolution. But you'll never know what works with your population until you try some things on for size. We had a low-power radio station for several years, and that was something the kids really liked.

+1,000 though to Mark Rubel being an extremely knowledgeable, approachable, and all-around great guy...

GJ

Adam Chesi
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Post by Adam Chesi » Sun Nov 11, 2012 2:34 pm

Gregg Juke wrote:Certain things that work on the collegiate level may not work as well in Middle or Secondary school, but it's worth a shot.
I definitely agree that things that work at the collegiate level don't necessarily work at the lower levels. Especially when you have a live performer who has a patented response to someone yelling, "Freebird" of, well, freeing the bird...

I should point out that Mark's likely on his way back from the 1979 Summit right now and probably has 2 dozen things to do today, so his response might be a hair slow this week, but he's definitely one of the most knowledgable and friendly people I've ever had the opportunity to work with, learn from, or learn with.
~Adam Chesi
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goose134
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Post by goose134 » Thu Nov 15, 2012 8:38 pm

There is a really great book called Perfecting Sound Forever: An Aural History of Recorded Music. It's pretty great. It runs from the wax cylinder through MP3's. Does a nice job explaining the Loudness War and puts it in context without getting too obtuse.

I'd also recommend looking up some writings by Deena Weinstein. She is a professor of sociology at DePaul University. She has a class called the Sociology of Rock and has published extensively on the subject.

here is a link to the book:
http://www.amazon.com/Perfecting-Sound- ... 0865479380
I make a living as an electrician, not recording in the basement.

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