Peter Wicke POPULAR MUSIC In German Music Council / German Music Information Centre, ed., Musical Life in Germany (Bonn, 2019), pp. 350–375 Published in print: December 2019 © German Music Information Centre http://www.miz.org/musical-life-in-germany.html https://themen.miz.org/musical-life-in-germany Kapitel | POPULAR MUSIC 13 For decades rock and pop music have been the favourite genres of every age group, whether live or on recording. Here Peter Wicke points out the latest developments and describes the infrastructure. Silbermond giving an open-air concert on the banks of the Elbe River, Dresden, 2017 350 351 Popular Music | | Peter Wicke demand and mobile music, live music continues to gain in importance, even coun- teracting the media by re-incorporating such cultural practices as DJing into live contexts. Yet this anomaly is part and parcel of the music’s essence. Germany’s mu- POPULAR MUSIC sical life, too, reflects it in contradictory growth trends, allowing live music to un- dergo a boom (as witness the mushrooming of new festivals) while streaming and download platforms make the entire world of music available on the internet with Pop, rock, hip-hop, rap, soul, techno, dance, Schlager, commercial folk, brass band, a click of the mouse. Indeed, the internet as a whole has become a key factor in the chanson and all their many hybrids and sub-genres occupy a place of central im- way we deal with music; it is now available in 93 per cent of German households, portance in Germany’s musical life. Such names as Helene Fischer, Max Giesinger, including 33.2 million broadband connections. Even so, the National Association Tokio Hotel, Die Toten Hosen, Rammstein, Bushido and Paul Kalkbrenner have been of the Event Industry (Bundesverband der Veranstaltungswirtschaft) determined common parlance in Germany, and not only there. For decades rock and pop music that €3.7 billion were spent on concert visits in 2016, with a market segment of have been the undisputed top genres in standard surveys, no matter what the age 30 per cent (€1.1 billion) going to concerts of such popular genres as rock, pop, hard group, lending a special musical touch to everyday lives in every stratum of society rock, heavy metal, hip-hop and rap. In that same year total revenues from the sale (see also Karl-Heinz Reuband’s essay ‘Preferences and Publics’). of sound recordings (both physical and digital) amounted to nearly €1.8 billion, including royalties and synchronisation rights.1 Popular music, in all its many wide-ranging genres, is also an outstanding field for personal self-expression – a factor easily overlooked, given its omnipresence Despite the growing use of the media, active music-making, whether in its conven- in the media. For every musical career in the media there are literally hundreds tional form or in new forms based on software programs and recording equipment of recreational musicians from all age groups who satisfy their creative needs by making music on their own, with greater or lesser ambition. They give popular music those deep roots in daily life without which it would be unthinkable even in the context of the professional music industry. Furthermore, notwithstanding the preponderance of the media, popular music is a cultural terrain still dominated by live performance. This is not merely because only a tiny fraction of the musical ac- tivities in this field find their way into the media. Rather, it is because taking part in active music-making, and plunging into the network of social relations that arise from musical performance (and nowhere else), is one of popular music’s defining functional elements. The ‘scene’, with its characteristic local infrastructure of venues and music-related activities, plus the more or less permanent social groups, fan clubs and recreation al cliques associated with it, forms an arena of constantly growing importance for the acquisition of social skills and the expression of social identity and indi- More than 40 years on stage: the band Karat, founded in 1975, viduality. Viewed in this light, it is an odd anomaly that as the media ineluctably was one of the most successful formations in the former state strengthen their hold on music with streaming services such as Spotify, music-on- of East Germany. 352 353 Popular Music | Fig. 1 | Educational facilities for pop, rock and jazz Source: German Music Information Centre, 2018 (virtual music-making with computer- aided sound processing modules and TYPE OF FACILITY DJing), continues to play a large role in Tertiary-level music school or every category of popular music. Yet the comparable institution for Nordkolleg Rendsburg popular music Hochschule für Musik creative, cultural and social activities u. Theater Rostock University or university with integrated tertiary-level music connected with these popular music Musikhochschule Lübeck school Hamburger Hochschule für Musik u. Theater Hamburg Tertiary-level school of church forms, as well as the infrastructure that Konservatorium music Johannes-Brahms- HSM – Hamburg School of Music Private tertiary-level school, supports them and the web of institu- Konservatorium (Hamburg) conservatory or professional academy tions that condition them, are difficult to Hochschule für Künste Bremen Vocational music school Bavaria only SRH Hochschule der populären grasp. The reasons have to do with their Künste (hdpk) (Berlin) Other 2 evolutionary dynamism, their tightly in- Universität der Künste Berlin1 Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin1 The British and Irish Modern Music Note: The map includes those facilities that terlocking nexus of glob al, regional and Hochschule Osnabrück Institute (BIMM) (Berlin) Music College offer separate degree programmes or train- Hannover Rock Pop Schule Berlin ing in jazz, rock or pop. Exceptions or special local processes, and their marked frag- Hochschule für Musik, cases are indicated in footnotes. Institutions Theater u. Medien Hannover that only offer isolated modules in these areas are excluded, as are music schools and mentation into more or less indepen- Universität Paderborn facilities of advanced or continuing educa- Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Brandenburgische Techn. Universität tion. Also excluded are institutions with an dent subsystems, scenes, socio-cultural Münster – Musikhochschule Cottbus-Senftenberg emphasis on musicals or film music and those for part-time church musicians with a Folkwang Universität der Glen Buschmann Jazzakademie (Dortmund) milieus, fan groups and musical subcul- Künste – Campus Bochum focus on popular music. Facilities with more than one site are marked at the location of Hochschule für Kirchenmusik Hochschule für Musik u. Theater tures. The potential that lurks in this der Ev. Kirche von Westfalen – „Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy“ Leipzig their headquarters. If the headquarters do Ev. Popakademie (Witten) 3 not have an emphasis on pop, rock or jazz, the map indicates only the site that features area of music, whether cultural, artis- Hochschule für Musik u. Tanz Köln such an emphasis. Hochschule für Musik tic, social or economic, has hardly been Carl Maria von Weber Dresden Detailed information on course offerings and Hochschule für Musik FRANZ LISZT Weimar training programmes of the facilities con- cerned can be found at tapped. As a result, the false impression Rock Pop Jazz Akademie www.miz.org/themenportale/jazz-rock-pop Mittelhessen (Gießen) has arisen that popular music largely 1 Stiftung Dr. Hoch's Konservatorium (Frankfurt) Jazz training at the Hanns Eisler School of Music and Berlin University of the Arts is given at the Berlin Jazz proceeds as portrayed in the media, with Wiesbadener Musikakademie FMW | Frankfurter Musikwerkstatt Institute, a joint facility of both institutions. 2 Chair of the theory and history of popular music. Hochschule für Musik Mainz an der future music school Hochschule u. Institut für 3 everything else being a negligible and Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz (Aschaffenburg) The Evangelical Pop Academy is a facility operated ev. Kirchenmusik (Bayreuth) jointly by the Tertiary-level School of Church Music of Hochschule für the Evangelical Church of Westphalia and the founda- derivative by-product. Yet every week Staatl. Hochschule für Musik u. Musik Würzburg tion ‘Creative Kirche’. Darstellende Kunst Mannheim Berufsfachschule für Musik für Blinde, 4 The degree programme in popular music was offered Popakademie Baden-Württemberg Sehbehinderte u. Sehende (Nürnberg) by the former Freiburg University of Art, Design and the urban mag azines of Germany’s large (Mannheim) Hochschule für Musik Saar Hochschule für Kirchenmusik Popular Music, incorporated as Campus Freiburg in the (Saarbrücken) der Ev. Landeskirche Musication – Berufsfachschule Macromedia University since 2018. 5 für Musik (Nürnberg) cities alone advertise hundreds of mu- in Baden (Heidelberg) Hochschule für 5 Postgraduate programme in popular church music in Musik Nürnberg Die Musikerschmiede – Berufsfachschule cooperation with Popakademie Baden-Württemberg. 6 für Instrumentalsolisten (Zweibrücken) Berufsfachschule für Musik The map shows the headquarters; training takes place sical events mounted by professional, des Bezirks Mittelfranken music-college – Berufsfach- at 12 sites in Germany. (Dinkelsbühl) schule für Musik (Regensburg) Staatl. Hochschule für Musik u. semi-professional and non- professional Darstellende Kunst Stuttgart musicians, by DJs and sound artists. Hochschule für Kirchenmusik der Ev. Landeskirche