Professor Allan Moore

Biography

I joined the University in 2000 and am currently Professor of Popular Music in the School of Arts (Music). I gained a first in music from the University of Southampton and a Masters' in Composition from the University of Surrey before returning to Southampton to complete a PhD in 1990 on the late chamber music of Roberto Gerhard and the problem of an adequate analytic method. Until 2000 I led research in the London College of Music and Media at Thames Valley University. I have also taught courses at Royal Holloway (University of London) and City University.
Subsequent to my doctoral research, I changed tack towards researching popular music, with a particular interest in questions of meaning in recorded song. I was a founder member of the Critical Musicology Forum, was founding co-editor of the journal twentieth-century music and am or have been on various other journal and book editorial and advisory boards (Popular Music, Popular Musicology Online, the Journal of the Art of Record Production, the Journal of the Society for American Music, and Rivista de Analisi e Teoria Musicale, the University of Michigan Press book series Tracking Pop, and the Palgrave book series Pop Music, Culture, and Identity). I am currently co-ordinating editor of the journal Popular Music. I have served as a member of the AHRC peer review college and of the Music Publishers' Association Register of Expert Witnesses. I have also received major research grants from the Arts & Humanities Research Council and from PALATINE (the Higher Education Funding Council for England teaching & learning centre for the performing arts). Full and up-to-date details of my publications can be found on my website, www.allanfmoore.org.uk

Research Interests

I work on the hermeneutics of recorded popular song. Historically, I have a particular interest in the period 1955-80, and in terms of praxis I am particularly interested in the folk song traditions of the British Isles. I am currently engaged in investigating findings in the general field of cognitive linguistics with a view to their application to the study of contemporary song lyrics.

Publications

(since 2000)

BOOKS

Critical readings in popular musicology (editor), Ashgate Press, 2007 (xxii+608pp).
Jethro Tull: Aqualung; New York: Continuum, 2004 (xvii+110pp).
Analyzing popular music (editor), Cambridge University Press, 2003 (xi+270pp).
Cambridge Companion to Blues and Gospel Music (editor), Cambridge University Press, 2003 (208pp).
Rock: the primary text; (revised edition), Ashgate Press, 2001 (253pp).

REFEREED ARTICLES AND BOOK CHAPTERS

'Le style et le genre comme mode esthétique', trans. O. Julien; Musurgia XV(1) , 2008, 45-55.
'The act you've known for all these years: a re-encounter with Sgt. Pepper' in Olivier Julien (ed.): Sgt. Pepper: it was forty years ago today; Ashgate 2008, pp.139-46.
'Hallelujah: il gusto amaro del cantar lode'; Rivista di Analisi e Teoria Musicale 13/2, 2007, pp.45-65.
''Defining' and 'doing' musicology in popular music' in Moore (ed.): Critical readings in popular musicology (above), 2007, pp.ix-xxii.
'Gentle Giant's Octopus', Philomusica on-line: Composition And Experimentation In British Rock 1967-1976, 2007, http://www.unipv.it/britishrock1966-1976/testien/moo1en.htm.
'What story should a history of popular music tell?'; Popular Music History 1/3, December 2006, pp.329-38.
'L'appropriazione della musica celtica', trans. L. Marconi, in Nicola Dusi & Lucio Spaziante (eds.): Remix-Remake; Rome: Meltemi, 2006, pp.229-39.
'Popular Music. Where are we?'; CHARM symposium papers, November 2005, http://www.charm.rhul.ac.uk/content/events/s1Moore.pdf.
'The Persona/Environment relation in recorded song'; Music Theory Online 11/4, October 2005, http:www.music-theory.org/mto/issues/mto.05.11.4/ mto.05.11.4.moore_frames.html.
'Beyond a musicology of production'; Proceedings of the Art of Record Production Conference, September 2005, http://mercury.tvu.ac.uk/music/
'Sounds like Teen Spirit: identifying Radiohead's idiolect', with Anwar Ibrahim , in Joseph Tate (ed.): Strobe-Lights and Blown Speakers: essays on the music and art of Radiohead; Ashgate, 2005, pp.139-58.
'Principles for Teaching & Assessing Songwriting in Higher Education'; Palatine papers, 2004, http://www.lancs.ac.uk/palatine/reports/ allanmoore.htm.
'The contradictory aesthetics of Woodstock' in Andrew Bennett (ed.): Remembering Woodstock; Ashgate, 2004, pp.75-89.
'Jethro Tull and the case for modernism in mass music' in Moore (ed.): Analyzing popular music (above), 2003, pp.158-72.
'Introduction' in Moore (ed.): Analyzing popular music (above), 2003, pp.1-15.
'Surveying the field: our knowledge of blues and gospel music' in Moore (ed.): Cambridge Companion to Blues and Gospel Music (above), 2003, pp.1-12.
'Looking for the Kingdom Come: questioning spirituality in U2'; Popular Musicology Online 2002, http://www.cyberstudia.com/popular-musicology- online/papers-6/moore-1.html.
'Authenticity as authentication'; Popular Music 21/2, May 2002, pp.209-223.
'Categorical conventions in music-discourse: style and genre'; Music and Letters 82/3, 2001, pp.432-42.
'Come si ascolta la popular music' in Jean-Jacques Nattiez (ed.): Enciclopedia Einaudi della Musica, vol.1, Einaudi, 2001, pp.701-18.
'Questioni di stile, genere e idioletto nel rock', trans. P. Polselli; Musica realtà 64, March 2001, pp.85-102.
'Constructing authenticity in rock'; Performance Arts International 1, Winter 2000, http://www.performanceartsinternational.net/html/Ampaper.html.
'Analizzare il rock: strumenti e finalità', trans. P. Polselli; Musica realtà 62, July 2000, pp.95-118.
'On the pop-classical split' in Derek B. Scott (ed.): Music, culture and society; Oxford University Press, 2000, pp.161-4.
'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band' in Anthony Aldgate, James Chapman and Arthur Marwick (eds.): Windows on the Sixties; I.B.Tauris, 2000, pp.139-53.

CONFERENCE AND SEMINAR PAPERS

'Aspects of embodied meaning'; invited paper at third Art of Record Production conference, University of Glamorgan, November 2009.
'A hermeneutic method for spatialization in recorded song'; paper to be delivered at L’Analyse musicals aujourd'hui: crise ou (r)évolution?, University of Strasbourg, November 2009.
'Theorising spatialization in popular song'; research seminar at University of Helsinki, October 2009.
'Against semiotics?'; research seminar at Universities of Oslo and Agder (Kristiansand), September 2009.
'Dystopian progressions'; research seminar given at University of Dijon, April 2009.
'Enculturation issues in pre-/post-18 music study'; position paper delivered to NAME South-East meeting, University of Reading, March 2009.
'Interpretation: so what?'; keynote address at Society for Music Analysis day, Liverpool University, November 2007.
'The end of the revival: addressing the folk aesthetic'; research paper given at City University, October 2007?
'Forming the diagonal mix'; research paper given at the Fifth International Conference on Music since 1900, University of York, July 2007.
'The act I've known for all these years'; research paper given at University of Oxford, May 2007.
'An analytical practice for late 1960s rock'; invited paper delivered at Conservatorio Arrigo Boito, Parma, March 2007.
'Introducing Sgt. Pepper'; invited paper delivered at Como Conservatory, March 2007.
'Questions on popular music analysis'; research seminar given at Como Conservatory, March 2007.
'The act you've known for all these years: a re-encounter with Sgt. Pepper'; invited paper delivered at Conservatorio Arrigo Boito, Parma, and at University of Pisa, March 2007.
'Criteria for musicianship'; invited paper delivered to East Sussex County Music Service, September 2006.
'Exploring the personic environment'; research paper delivered at University of Westminster, April 2006.
'Reading the personic environment'; research paper delivered at University of Kingston, February 2006.
'The persona/environment relation'; research paper delivered at University of Southampton, January 2006.
'Thinking space'; keynote address: Leeds International Music technology Education Conference; Leeds College of Music, November 2005.
'Gentle Giant: Octopus'; invited paper at Composition and Experimentation in British Rock: 1966-1976; University of Cremona, October 2005.
'Beyond a musicology of production'; invited paper at The Art of Record Production, Thames Valley University, September 2005.
'Popular Music. Where are we?'; invited paper at CHARM symposium; Royal Holloway, University of London, April 2005.
'What story should a history of popular music tell?'; History and Music interdisciplinary conference co-hosted by Royal Historical Society & Royal Musical Association, University of Cambridge, March 2005.
'The music behind the singer'; research paper delivered at University of Manchester, February 2005.
'Principles for teaching and assessing songwriting in HE'; UK songwriting conference, Bath Spa University, November 2004.
'Borrowing in Celtic Music'; invited paper at Remake rework: sociosemiotics and 'replica practices'; University of Urbino, July 2004.
'Functions of accompaniment in style analysis'; invited keynote at 7th Finnish Musicology Conference, March 2004.
'Keltia: the empty third'; research paper delivered at Kings College London, March 2004.
'The disappearance of the song from popular culture'; invited keynote at The State of Song, Trinity College, December 2002.
'Revisiting the soundbox'; Society for Music Analysis Autumn Study Day, University of Sheffield, October 2002.
'Reading "Leonard Cohen's 'Hallelujah'"'; International Association of Popular Music conference, University of Newcastle, July 2002.
'Location, location, location! An issue in analysing rock recordings'; research paper delivered at the University of Surrey, Roehampton, February 2002.
'Reforming Alfie'; research paper delivered at the University of Southampton, January 2002.
'Expressing transcendent love in popular music'; research paper delivered at Anglia Polytechnic University, November 2001.
'Formal transcendence in popular music'; research paper delivered at University of Sheffield, February 2001.
'Constructing authenticity in rock'; invited paper at Comparative music praxes, Middlesex University, May 2000.
'Analysing popular music'; invited paper at Teaching Pop Music, Institute of Education, London University, May 2000.

Teaching

I currently coordinate the first-year overview module Understanding Music and the final year Dissertation. I teach the second-year module Popular Song Analysis and the third-year options Rock Track Poetics, Anglo -Celtic Song Traditions and Progressive Issues in Rock. At Masters' level, I teach the module Popular Musicology.

Departmental Duties

I am PGR director in music.