History of Rock: New MOOC Presents the Music of Elvis, Dylan, Beatles, Stones, Hendrix & More

Here’s some­thing I can get pret­ty jazzed about. Er, maybe that’s not quite the right verb. But close enough.…

On May 13, the East­man School of Music at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Rochester will launch the first of two MOOCs that will trace the his­to­ry of rock music. Taught by John Cov­ach, a pro­fes­sor of music the­o­ry, The His­to­ry of Rock, Part One will revis­it the 1950s and 1960s, the hal­cy­on days of rock ’n’ roll, which gave us the music of Elvis Pres­ley, Chuck Berry, Phil Spec­tor, Bob Dylan, the Bea­t­les, the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hen­drix, Cream, and oth­er bands. The course will focus on the music itself, the cul­tur­al con­text from which rock emerged, and how changes in the music busi­ness and music tech­nol­o­gy shaped this new musi­cal form. The sec­ond course (sched­uled to start on July 8) will move for­ward to the 1970, 80s and 90s and cov­er the music of Led Zep­pelin, the All­man Broth­ers, Car­ole King, Bob Mar­ley, the Sex Pis­tols, Don­na Sum­mer, Michael Jack­son, Madon­na, Prince, Metal­li­ca, Run-DMC, Nir­vana, and oth­er artists. Stu­dents who suc­cess­ful­ly com­plete the course will receive a “State­ment of Accom­plish­ment” signed by the instruc­tor.

Oth­er music cours­es list­ed in our col­lec­tion of 300 Free MOOCs from Great Uni­ver­si­ties include Intro­duc­tion to Gui­tar and Intro­duc­tion to Impro­vi­sa­tion. They’re both cre­at­ed by the Berklee Col­lege of Music and start on April 22.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A His­to­ry of Rock ‘n’ Roll in 100 Riffs

The His­to­ry of Punk Rock

Carnegie Hall MOOC Will Teach You How to Lis­ten to Orches­tras (Free)