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Form as Harmony in Rock Music

Form as Harmony in Rock Music

No customer reviews yet ISBN 9780190948368 Oxford University Press

Overturning the inherited belief that popular music is unrefined, Form as Harmony in Rock Music brings the process-based approach of classical theorists to popular music scholarship. Author Drew Nobile offers the first comprehensive theory of form for 1960s, 70s, and 80s classic rock repertoire, showing how songs in this genre are not simply a series of discrete elements, but rather exhibit cohesive formal-harmonic structures across their entire timespan. Though many elements contribute to the cohesion of a song, the rock music of these decades is built around a fundamentally harmonic backdrop, giving rise to distinct types of verses, choruses, and bridges. Nobile's rigorous but readable theoretical analysis demonstrates how artists from Bob Dylan to Stevie Wonder to Madonna consistently turn to the same compositional structures throughout rock's various genres and decades, unifying them under a single musical style. Using over 200 transcriptions, graphs, and form charts, Form as Harmony in Rock Music advocates a structural approach to rock analysis, revealing essential features of this style that would otherwise remain below our conscious awareness.

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BrandOxford University Press
Pub dateMay 12, 2020
ISBN-100190948361
ISBN-139780190948368
LanguageEnglish
Dimensions6.9 × 0.6 × 9.9 in
Weight1 lb
Last updated 2026-06-02 14:31
$54.06
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