Unpopular opinion, but POP MUSIC is worth learning about in music class.

“Pop music isn’t worth learning about! Focus on the greats!”

“It just isn’t real music.”

“It all sounds the same!”

As a music teacher, you are bound to hear some version of these comments at some point from well-meaning people who don’t believe that pop music has merit. While these comments about the inferiority of pop music are wide-spread, I believe that they are untrue.

Pop music is based on the culture of the time and place in which it is written. When you hear pop, you learn about the struggles, triumphs, and trends of the artist’s generation. The music is meant to speak to listeners who share these feelings and relate to the message of the artist. You could say the same about music from any other genre, even the greats like Mozart and Beethoven.

With this in mind, here are a few ways to meaningfully incorporate pop music into your music curriculum.

1. Analyzing Lyrics

Analyzing lyrics can be challenging for music teachers who are not usually trained in English education. However, lyrics are a hugely important piece of the pop music genre, and they should be considered when learning about pop music. Plus, there are some easy ways to analyze lyrics that do not require this educational background. Here are a few ideas to get you started.

• Discuss the overall meaning of the song. What is the artist trying to say?
• Look for poetic devices within the lyrics. Good pop music is a treasure trove of metaphors, rhyme, and hyperbole.
• Ask students how the lyrics relate to their own life.
• Ask students to write an additional verse, contributing to the overall meaning of the song.

2. Understanding Form

When talking about musical form, pop music usually uses terminology that is different from classical music. Vocabulary like “chorus,” “verse,” “bridge,” “intro,” and “outro” are just as important to know as “binary”, “ternary,” and “sonata.”

A fun way to learn form through pop music is by giving students different colored highlighters and having them highlight each section in a particular color. For example, all of the choruses could be orange while all of the verses are pink. My students love highlighting and especially enjoying marking up songs that they already know!

3. Identifying Rhythm and Tonal Patterns within Pop Songs.

Learning about duple meter? Tonic chords? Meter changes? A fabulous way to reinforce concepts is by having students identify them within songs that are already familiar to them. And don’t worry about pop music lacking these “real” musical concepts. Despite what critics may say, I have found examples of almost every musical concept I teach within pop songs. There are many online databases in which music teachers have already done the work of finding examples for you, you just have to do some digging.

4. Performing Chord Progressions on Instruments

“They use the same four chords in every song!”

Sometimes! But as a middle school music teacher, this is an absolute blessing when it comes to beginning instrument instruction. When I teach ukulele, it can take a full month to master just a few chords. Thankfully, we are able to play many popular songs with just these few chords on repeat.

As a side note, I do not believe repetition necessarily means a lack of merit. In fact, many of the greatest classical tunes rely on repetition of musical motives and chord progressions. I think that individual preference plays a large role into how much repetition in music we enjoy, but it should never be dismissed completely.

5. Comparing and Contrasting

Identifying similarities and differences helps us to learn, and it is the same when learning about music. When given two pieces of pop tunes, students can listen to hear what the pieces have in common and what is different. Have students create a venn diagram based on two songs and have them see how many similarities and differences they have. This is a great way to see how students are able to listen for all kinds of musical concepts such as meter, tonality, theme, motives, chord progressions, form, lyrics, patterns, etc.

Thanks for reading!

Please consider using pop tunes in your classroom; your students will thank you!