Anna-Karin Gallberg:

Rock music making within and outside a university college of music?

The purpose of this paper is to explore, describe and to some extent explain the ways in which rock music sounds different within and outside a University College of Music.

Two groups of musicians, one from a University College of Music and the other a rock group without formal education and from the non-university music sector were asked to create a rock song from a melody with lyrics composed especially for the project. Each group had one day in a recording studio to record and mix their versions of the song. Information was collected concerning how the two groups of musicians thought and acted before and during the studio recordings.

Results show that the final versions of the songs created belonged to stylistically different genres of composition. The music students' version was a jazzy pop tune which had much in common with what is often called "typical music-college music" or "college pop". The rock group version was stylistically within the bounds of hardcore music. The observation data and information from the interviews showed very different attitudes to music-making and to learning strategies when playing in an ensemble.

This would suggest that the way music is performed and the genre favoured depends on the way knowledge of music has been acquired. Future music teachers and musicians must be prepared to meet an audience with a broad range of different music experiences and expectations. How will the music institutions work with this potential conflict in future?