Teacher's Guide Cambridge Pre-U MUSIC Available for teaching ...

Cambridge Pre-U Teacher Guide
Apart from books about individual musicians, of which there are many, the following more general
studies may be found useful:
Shipton, A. A New History of Jazz. Continuum International 2008
Gioia, T. The History of Jazz. OUP 1999
Kirchner, B. The Oxford Companion to Jazz. OUP 2005
Gridley, M. C. Jazz Styles: History and Analysis. Prentice Hall 2002
Megill, D. D. Introduction to Jazz History. Prentice Hall 2003
Giddins, G. Visions of Jazz: The First Century. OUP 2000
Feather, L.
& Gitler, I. (eds) The Biographical Encyclopaedia of Jazz. OUP 2007
Walser, R. Keeping Time: Readings in Jazz History. OUP 1999
Cooke, M. (ed) The Cambridge Companion to Jazz. CUP 2003
Lopes. P. The Rise of a Jazz Art World. CUP 2002
Topic C5: Art Song and Popular Song in Britain and America (1939–1970)
The Syllabus lists some of the most significant composers of art song in both countries and this should
provide a sufficient starting point for exploration of the repertoire. The same is true for popular song,
though it is important to note that the emphasis in this case is much more on performers and styles
than on individual composers. It can sometimes be quite difficult to discover exactly who composed a
particular song, even when a recording by a well-known artist is very familiar.
The nature of the repertoire for this topic implies a rather different approach from most of the others,
simply because it embraces two very different kinds of music. Some of the main aesthetic issues
are listed in the Syllabus, and candidates need to consider such questions: the examination paper
will assume that they have done so. It is important, however, that issues of this kind should be
approached in as precise a way as possible, and that they should always be related directly to the
music studied. Answers that are too discursive and which make only scant reference to actual music
are unlikely to gain high marks.
Much information about this topic is available on the internet, especially for popular song. The quality
and reliability of such information is, however, extremely variable. Care needs to be exercised in
choosing which web sites are accurate and useful, and which are not. The standard search engines will
nevertheless bring up sites that give fairly comprehensive lists of composers, styles and artists that
will very easily provide suggestions for a wider exploration of repertoire than is given in the Syllabus.
There are relatively few scholarly books that directly address this topic. For English song, most
deal with a slightly earlier period, while for popular song many published resources are quite
conversational in tone. Information about specific composers and their songs is therefore more
easily found in books about those composers individually, rather than in more general studies. The
following suggestions may be useful:
Banfield, S. Sensibility and English Song: Critical Studies of the Early 20th Century.
CUP 1985
Karloyi, O. Modern British Music: the Second British Musical Renaissance, from Elgar to P.
Maxwell Davies. Associated University Presses 1994
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