{"id":358922,"date":"2019-01-17T12:54:11","date_gmt":"2019-01-17T17:54:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/?p=358922"},"modified":"2019-01-17T12:54:11","modified_gmt":"2019-01-17T17:54:11","slug":"rochester-home-to-the-study-of-pop-music-358922","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/rochester-home-to-the-study-of-pop-music-358922\/","title":{"rendered":"Rochester: home to the study of pop music"},"content":{"rendered":"

The \u201cstudy of pop music is just as serious-minded as studying Beethoven, Bach, and Brahms,\u201d says John Covach, director of Rochester\u2019s\u00a0Institute for Popular Music<\/a>\u00a0in an interview in the January\/February 2019 edition of (585) magazine<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

While popular music origins are generally thought to be in the mid 1950s in the United States and United Kingdom, Covach places the genre nearer to the Civil War, with its roots appearing in other forms, like \u201ccountry and western, jazz, and film music,\u201d among others.<\/p>\n

The decision to include a performer or band in the pantheon of pop gods worthy of study is literally a matter of time. \u201cIt takes twenty years for history to form, says Covach.\u00a0 \u201cYou have to look back from a historical distance to make a better judgment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Covach, coauthor of What\u2019s That Sound: An Introduction to Rock and Its History<\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>founded the Institute for Popular Music in 2013 to bring lecturers and scholars to Rochester to understand the importance of accepting scholarship in pop music.<\/p>\n