Akitsugu Kawamoto, Ph.D. 2006
1939-1959 | 1960-1969 | 1970-1979 | 1980-1989 | 1990-1999 | 2000-2009 | 2010-2019 | 2020-Present |
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Advisor | Dissertation Awards |
Advisor: John Covach
Dissertation Title: Forms of Intertextuality: Keith Emerson’s Development as a “Crossover” Musician
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Dissertation Abstract:
Despite the broad range of attempts to mix ‘rock’ and ‘classical’ music by ‘progressive (prog) rock’ musicians from the late 1960s, many writers on prog rock have interpreted the music in a relatively monolithic manner; they often have interpreted the resulting intertextuality simplistically as an elitist experiment that opposes rock’s populist origin. This could certainly be one interpretation of prog, but it is only one of many; there are many additional kinds of possible narratives, according to the specific ways in which the materials are combined and fused. Yet the variety of intertextual approaches has rarely been recognized explicitly, and little analytical or musicological attention has been paid to the influential relations between distinctly different intertextual styles. Generalized approaches to intertextuality have been common not only within popular music studies, however, but also within many humanistic fields. Since Julia Kristeva’s coinage of the term intertextuality in 1969, theorists of the arts (literature, music, painting, architecture, etc.), sociology, politics, economics, and many others, have almost always treated intertextuality in a singular manner, presuming that all intertextual practices are more or less of the same kind and that there is no influence of one intertextual practice upon another. Consequently, dynamic aspects of intertextuality that result from correlation between diverse forms of intertextuality have rarely been fully considered, though they play crucial roles in the history of twentieth-century arts.
This dissertation suggests the need to view intertextuality in its multiplicity and dynamism, by disclosing and interpreting a variety of intertextual practices and their important historical developments in the case of prog-rock keyboardist Keith Emerson’s ‘crossover’ music. Following an introduction on theories and practices of musical intertextuality, Emerson’s general style of blending ‘rock’ and ‘classical’ music is elucidated in comparison with that of other prog rock musicians. The development of his crossover styles is then considered, from The Nice period through ELP (Emerson, Lake and Palmer) era to the solo period of the 1980s, 1990s and beyond. The analysis focuses on various methods of combining ‘rock’ and ‘classical’ music, and on the historical development of those different methods. Analytical results are interpreted from the viewpoints of narrativity in music, and a multitude of possible narrative interpretations are shown. This study thus proposes and models a range of pragmatic ways to expand the scope of intertextual analysis, and transcend the limits of certain intertextuality theories in music, as well as in the arts in general.
Dr. Kawamoto is currently Associate Professor in the College of Music at Ferris University in Yokohama, Japan, where he teaches courses in popular music, music theory, and musicology. He has published an article on Keith Emerson, the subject of his dissertation, in the journal Popular Music, and, with Henry Johnson, contributed a chapter to the volume Global Glam and Popular Music on “‘Visual-kei’: Glamour in Japanese Pop Music.”