RALF VON APPEN
Director of the Institute for Popular Music
Tel.: +43 1 71155-3810
E-Mail: von-appen@mdw.ac.at
Website: mdw.academia.edu/RalfvonAppen
Biography
After graduate studies in musicology, philosophy and psychology at Justus Liebig University Giessen, Germany, Ralf von Appen worked as a teaching and research assistant in Bremen and Giessen where he received a doctorate in musicology in 2007 and deputized the professorship for music pedagogy from 2017 to 2019. In 2019 he became Professor for the Theory and History of Popular Music at the University for Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. He has published widely about the history, psychology, aesthetics and analysis of popular music and presented papers at conferences all across Europe. Ralf von Appen has been chairman of the German Society for Popular Music Studies (GfPM) from 2008-2020. He is also a member of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music and has been elected co-editor of the annual book series Beitraege zur Popularmusikforschung.
English publications:
- Song Interpretation in 21st-Century Pop Music. Co-edited with André Doehring, Dietrich Helms u. Allan F. Moore Farnham u. Burlington: Ashgate 2015.
- “Analysing and Interpreting Song Forms” In: The Bloomsbury Handbook of Rock Music Research. Ed. by Allan F. Moore and Paul Carr. London u. New York: Bloomsbury 2020, S. 91-106.
- “Feigning or Feeling. On the Staging of Authenticity on Stage.” In: Samples 18, www.gfpm-samples.de/Samples18/vonappen.pdf (2020).
- “Compound Forms” In: Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World Online. Ed. by John Shepherd and David Horn, www.bloomsburypopularmusic.com (2018).
- “Analysing Popular Music. Madonna’s ‘Hung Up’” (with André Doehring). In: Samples 15, www.gpfm-samples.de/Samples15/appendoehring.pdf (2017)
- “A Re-encounter with the Scorpions’ ‚Wind Of Change’. Why I Couldn’t Stand it Then – and What I Learn from Analysing it Now.” In: Perspectives on German Popular Music. Ed. by Michael Ahlers and Christoph Jacke. London u. New York: Routledge 2016, pp. 88-93.
- “Ear Candy: What Makes Ke$ha’s ‘Tik Tok’ Tick?” In: Song Interpretation in 21st-Century Pop Music. Ed. by Ralf von Appen, André Doehring, Dietrich Helms and Allan F. Moore. Farnham and Burlington: Ashgate 2015, pp. 29-51.
- “AABA, Refrain, Chorus, Bridge, Pre-Chorus – Song Forms and their Historical Development.“ (with Markus Frei-Hauenschild) In: Samples 13, www.gfpm-samples.de/Samples13/appenfrei.pdf (2015).
- “On the aesthetics of popular music.“ In: Music Therapy Today Vol. VIII (1), pp. 5-25, http://www.musictherapyworld.de/modules/mmmagazine/issues/ 20070330122710/MTT8_1_April07eBook.pdf (2007).
- “Nevermind The Beatles, here’s Exile 61 & Nico: ‘The top 100 records of all time’ – a canon of pop and rock albums from a sociological and an aesthetic perspective.” In: Popular Music 25:1 (2006), pp. 21-39.