Tag Archives: musicology

Happy Birthday – the worlds most popular song is not under copyright according to lawsuit | Music | The Guardian

Posted on July 28, 2015 by Paul Carr

A recent article in the Guardian reports that the song Happy Birthday has ran out of copyright without the publishers realising! This means that Warner Chapel have some compensation to pay! Copyright expires anyway in the EU – meaning we … Continue reading →

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The Elements of Music and Musical Form

Posted on May 27, 2015 by Paul Carr

This podcast is on the relationship on the elements of music and form. It considers the ways in which elements such as musical texture, time signatures, and harmony can interact to create expectations in a listener. In popular music, these … Continue reading →

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The Elements of Music: How can we use them to discuss ‘interest’ in a piece of music?

Posted on May 19, 2015 by Paul Carr

This post concerns the elements of music, and the ways in which they are prioritised to indoctrinate interest in a piece of music. How can we use the elements that for most are so familiar, to begin to analyse popular … Continue reading →

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How Music Means and/or What Music Means?

Posted on May 18, 2015 by Paul Carr

Here is another very brief snippet asking students to consider the difference between WHAT music means and HOW it means. As Alan Moore points out in his book ‘Song Means’ – there is often a confusion here. For me, it … Continue reading →

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Magnetic North: Sting, Place and Identity

Posted on May 11, 2015 by Paul Carr

Although I am currently in the midst of loads of marking – when the dust settles I will be spending some time during the summer finishing off the initial draft of my Sting book – currently called ‘Magnetic North: Sting, … Continue reading →

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Psycoanalytic Approaches to Analysis and Musical Taste

Posted on April 16, 2015 by Paul Carr

As anyone who has read this blog will know, I have developed an ongoing interest in the ways in which music conveys meaning over the last few years. This has resulted in considering many academics’ thoughts – ranging from philosophers … Continue reading →

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More Thoughts on the A Level Music Curriculum

Posted on April 12, 2015 by Paul Carr

I have spent much time over the last several years trying to think more deeply about some of the issues associated with the ways in which students are prepared for higher education music courses. The National Diploma awards which were … Continue reading →

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Censorship and Frank Zappa

Posted on January 28, 2015 by Paul Carr

My post the other week about doing a Frank Zappa talk as part of the forthcoming Frank Zappa music festival in Bangor has just taken an unexpected and very disappointing twist. The festival organisers have been told by the Zappa … Continue reading →

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Final Final Thoughts on Melodic Analysis

Posted on January 26, 2015 by Paul Carr

I have been discussing melodic and harmonic analysis with my students over the last few weeks. As a random exercise – we thought it would be useful to consider how some of these techniques are incorporated into the top 10. … Continue reading →

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Update on Sting Book

Posted on December 1, 2014 by Paul Carr

I was in London last week doing some consultation for Pearson on the new A Level Music syllabus. The details of this are confidential, so I will use this post to provide an update on the other reason for my … Continue reading →

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