Taking “fun” seriously: Philip Tagg’s musematic method for analysing popular music in two seminal examples

Authors

  • Luiz Costa-Lima Neto

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.14393/artc-v26-n48-2024-75975

Keywords:

museme, musematic method, analysis of popular music

Abstract

Article about the contribution of English musicologist Philip Tagg (1944-2024) to studies around popular music. Through printed and audiovisual sources, we exemplify the author’s musematic method of musical analysis, with three main concepts: analized object, inter-objective comparative material and fields of paramusical connotation. We focuses on his two seminal works on the musical theme of the television series Kojak (1979) and the song “Fernando” (1976), by the Swedish band Abba, covering the stages of the musematic method: identification of musemas; their relationship with similar musemas from other musics; association with paramusical connotations through analogies and; hypothetical musical verification of the analysis. We conclude by highlighting the role played by Philip Tagg in creating a popular musicology), in dialogue with experts and “no-musos”.

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Author Biography

Luiz Costa-Lima Neto

Doutor em Musicologia pela Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (Unirio). Professor do curso de Pós-graduação Lato Sensu em Arteterapia da Clínica Pomar (Faculdade Vicentina- RJ). Autor, entre outros livros, de Música, teatro e história nas comédias de Luiz Carlos Martins Penna (1813-1846): entre o lundu, a ária e a aleluia. Rio de Janeiro: Folha Seca, 2018. 

References

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Published

2024-06-30

How to Cite

Costa-Lima Neto, L. (2024). Taking “fun” seriously: Philip Tagg’s musematic method for analysing popular music in two seminal examples. ArtCultura, 26(48), 7–22. https://doi.org/10.14393/artc-v26-n48-2024-75975

Issue

Section

Dossier - Pathways: History & Popular Music