NASHVILLE, Tenn. – The syllabus requires students to listen to "Be Bop Alula" and "(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party)." The instructor once opened for James Brown as a member of the Jayhawks.
The "History of Rock" course debuts this fall at the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt University.
"I’m not a fan of much of the so-called rock music released by big corporations," says Jen Gunderman, an ethnomusicologist and keyboardist who tours and records with singer Caitlin Cary. "I think it would be false to pretend I don’t have personal opinions, but I think the fact that I’ve played a lot of music and been on the road will help me not get too theoretical or precious about it in the classroom."
"History of Rock" is one of an expanding roster of courses being offered by Blair to both classical music majors and students across campus. New courses in 2004-05 in addition to "History of Rock" include "The Blues," "Country Music" and "Musical Theatre." Blair also offers courses in "African Music," "American Popular Music," "The Business of Music," "Computer Music" and "Exploring the Film Soundtrack."
"Students who take ‘History of Rock’ because they want an easy course should rethink that quickly," said Mark Wait, dean of the Blair School of Music. "It’s going to be rigorous and first-rate. We’re not going to do anything on the cheap."
Wait has wanted to offer a course on rock music for some time, but never felt like he had the right instructor until meeting Gunderman.
"She was in ethnomusicology and then was a rocker for eight years," he said. "That means she brings a practitioner’s perspective that even people who have been listening to rock for years can’t possibly know.
"It is precisely that broader perspective that really defines what an institution of higher education should be doing."
Gunderman graduated from Vassar College and then worked at Columbia Records in New York before leaving to study at the University of Washington, earning a master’s in ethnomusicology in 1996. She joined the funk rock band Dag and then the Jayhawks before settling in the band of ex-Whiskeytown singer Cary.
"When I first talked with Mark Wait about teaching at Vanderbilt, I’d just come off a spring and summer band tour," Gunderman said. "It was a physically grueling tour with no crew. I told him I never wanted to go out on tour ever again, but he’s also a performer, so he knew better.
"He said we could work around my schedule a little bit, though obviously I can’t leave in the middle of a semester to go on tour. But summers are off, and that’s the big touring season anyway."
Gunderman is curious to find out how much college students know about rock music (an incoming freshman would have been 3 years old when Nirvana’s first album was released, she notes) and is still working out how much of her personal history to incorporate.
"I’ve met a lot of great musicians, including a few of the icons like Jimmy Page and Mick Jagger, but those interactions aren’t particularly relevant," she said. "They are good stories-sometimes funny and sometimes incriminating.
"I’m more concerned with keeping a rock ‘n’ roll attitude alive in the class. I want to be open to disagreement and acknowledge that there is something odd about the intellectualization of punk rock music, for example."
Media contact: Jim Patterson, (615) 322-NEWS
Jim.patterson@vanderbilt.edu