From the Temptations to Donovan to Little Richard and The Byrds, students in John Palmer's "Rock Music: Styles and Contexts" will stand and deliver their own compositions based on the giants of rock n roll history.
The free concert "Electrified" is open to all at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 12 in GMC 1029.
"My thinking was that the best way to learn about a style is to try to re-create it," says SSU's resident musicologist John Palmer.
This year he asked his senior music students to create their own compositions instead of writing term papers on different eras and styles of rock music.
Students will perform their five original compositions as well as five older songs that they studied during the semester and that will likely be familiar to the audience.
What to expect? "I just finished a rehearsal and they sound quite good," says Palmer.
The styles the students are writing in, and representative artists, are:
Motown (The Supremes, The Temptations),
Brill Building (The Shirelles, Carol King and Gerry Goffin, Burt Bacharach and Hal David),
Folk Rock (The Byrds),
Rock 'n' Roll (Little Richard, etc.), and
Psychedelic (Donovan, The Yardbirds)
Though known primarily as an expert in Gustav Mahler, Palmer has written and taught courses in popular music, in particular rock music from England in the 1960s and 1970s, and regularly gives lectures for the San Francisco Symphony and Cal Performances.
For more information, contact John Palmer, (707) 664-2302.