Music in the Mid-1960S

KSKS45 Music in the mid-1960s David Ashworth by David Ashworth is a freelance education consultant, specialising in music technology. He is project leader for INTRODUCTION www.teachingmusic. org.uk and he has This resource provides background and analysis of some of the remarkable musical developments that took been involved at a national level in most place in the pop music of the mid-1960s. This is potentially a huge topic, so I have chosen to limit the field of the major music of investigation to the music being created, recorded and performed by the most significant British pop and initiatives in recent rock bands from this era. I make regular reference to a relatively small collection of songs that exemplify all the years. features under discussion. This is designed to help teachers and students overcome the challenges of having to source a large amount of reference material. This resource addresses four questions: Why was there such an explosion of musical creativity and development at this time? What were the key influences shaping the development of this music? What are the key musical features of this music? How might we use these musical ideas in classroom activities at KS3/4? Overall aim The overall aim of the resource is twofold. It aims to provide a series of activities that will give students composition frameworks, while at the same time learning about the style and the musical conventions of music from this era. Each section provides some brief background with relevant examples for active listening exercises. These are followed with suggestions for related classroom activities. Lesson objectives The activities included in this resource cover a good range of the aims and objectives set out in the new KS3 Curriculum for Music. By the end of this project, students will be able to: improvise and compose; and extend and develop musical ideas by drawing on a range of musical structures and traditions associated with the rock and pop music of the mid-1960s. identify and use the inter-related dimensions of music expressively, including use of tonalities, different types of scales and other musical devices. listen with increasing discrimination to a wide range of music from the most important composers and musicians from this era. develop a deepening understanding of this music and its history through composition and associated listening tasks. GCSE Music – the new specifications In addition, there is much here that would provide excellent support for students working on the composing and the listening/appraising/understanding strands of the forthcoming GCSE specifications for all examination boards: Areas of study: all examination boards include pop music in their areas of study. Some list specific pop music set works, but all give the freedom for teachers to work with any appropriate material. This resource provides many helpful suggestions. Performance: cover versions of some of these songs (or original works written in similar styles) provide a good range and flexibility for all candidates to play to their performing strengths. Some of the songs are quite straightforward, while others are more challenging. But all are great fun to play! Composition: again, there is much in this resource that can be used to support this strand. Students 1 Music Teacher August 2015 are allowed to compose a piece for their own instrument (which may well be a ‘pop’ instrument). Some composition tasks are linked to the areas of study, which include a good number of pop music possibilities. Each section of our resource provides useful starting points for GCSE composing tasks. Listening/appraising/understanding: much of this centres around the areas of study which, we have already noted, contain a lot of pop music references – specific and more general. The listening examples and activities covered in this resource provide great opportunities for devising GCSE listening-style questions, which are based on listening out for musical elements, musical contexts and musical language. Relevance to specific exam board criteria AQA One area of study (AoS) is pop music, with three songs by the Beatles as a set work. Many composing activities suggested here will be useful and relevant, since the AQA composing requirements are not linked to any particular areas of study. Edexcel One of the composing requirements has to be linked to one of the areas of study. Some of the activities suggested below in working with music from different cultures would he useful for students wishing to work with the Fusion Music option OCR One AoS is ‘conventions of pop music’, with no set works. This resource covers most of the important ‘conventions’, and the repertoire covered here can be used by the class teacher requiring some guidance on appropriate music for study. Students learning pop instruments can draw on this resource as the free-choice composition will be for the candidate’s instrument. WJEC As with OCR, an AoS is pop music, with no set works. This resource is therefore highly appropriate for covering work in this area. The Board are keen to see development of musical ideas, and there will be a choice of four briefs, one linked to the pop music AoS. What makes this music particularly suitable for classroom exploration? This resource introduces musical concepts and ways of working that are highly appropriate for the young people we are teaching. By focusing on this particular strand of pop music from the mid-1960s, we are considering music being made by musically inexperienced and largely untrained aspiring young musicians. These young musicians had the freedom to try out ideas and follow their instincts in deciding what worked musically. Their musical skills and the available instrumentation were a limiting factor, but it is amazing how much good work was produced given these constraints. The young musicians were often assisted by recording producers, managers and engineers, who in some cases would provide a de facto teacher support element. So there is much that our students can learn by working with these musical ideas and approaches. The activities outlined below are designed to allow and encourage students to explore music making using similar methods and pathways. BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT The pop musicians of the early 1960s nearly always performed material written by others – either the rock ’n’ roll or rhythm and blues of their American musical heroes (Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Howling Wolf and Muddy Waters, for example), or songs churned out by teams of professional writers, contracted by the major recording companies. Following the early songwriting successes of bands like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, there was gradually more pressure on bands to write own material. Recording companies found this an effective way Music Teacher August 2015 2 to cut publishing costs and, as the market moved from singles to long-playing records, there was a pressing need for bands to create new material – and quickly. Initially, many wrote in the rock ’n’ roll or R&B styles, but there soon came a time when some of our more adventurous bands wanted to explore new musical avenues. The point to remember is that these musicians were very young and usually had little formal musical training. This, in turn, sometimes proved to be a strength. Instead of ploughing the well-worn musical furrows of the more professional writers, they were able to approach songwriting with fresh eyes and ears. This musical naivety could sometimes result in banal, trite songs, but the more gifted emerging songwriters of this generation often came up with songs of startling originality and quality. The emerging writers tended to be eclectic and non-judgmental. They drew their musical influences from a range of musical cultures and were guided by their ears rather than more formal rules of songwriting. Record companies were prepared to allow these young musicians considerable freedom as commercially and financially they were able to reap bigger rewards. This was music that was cheap to produce, and made strong cultural connections with the growing (and increasingly affluent) teenage audience and consumers. Here are some of the main musical characteristics and influences of pop music in the mid-1960s: Rock ’n’ roll and rhythm and blues continued to be a big influence. The ‘music hall’ style (see below) gave the music more of a British identity in terms of the music itself, the lyrical subject matter and also the style of singing. Lyrics moved on from boy-meets-girl clichés to reflect a greater range of contemporary issues, often very poetically. Bob Dylan was the major driving force in this respect. Performances were louder, with greater use of electric instruments. More exotic and orchestral instruments were added to the standard pop instrument ensemble. Developments in keyboard technology increased the range of sounds available. The newer sounds from America, especially soul/Tamla Motown, were a major influence. There was greater interest in working with more layers of vocal sound, inspired to a large extent by the work of the Beach Boys. Developments in recording technology allowed for more sophisticated recordings. The increased emphasis on recording LPs allowed for the composition of much longer songs. Because many of the young musician’s instrumental skills developed rapidly over this period, instrumental use often went far beyond mere song accompaniment. There are two points worth making before going any further. First, it is very difficult to divide this musically productive decade into neat and tidy segments. As one era was fading, a new landscape was slowly emerging – with some considerable overlap. For example Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles and Pink Floyd began dabbling with musical ideas in the mid-1960s that others would only take up much later on in the decade. Secondly, I have consciously avoided making much mention of the Beatles in this resource.

Load more