Professor’s short music lessons go viral

By Cindy Landrum  

MARCH 22, 2012 1:06 p.m. (1)

YouTube helped University of South Carolina Upstate music professor Dr. Gregg Akkerman battle the short attention spans of college students.

And now Akkerman’s short video lectures on the history of rock and music business have gone viral.

Akkerman has uploaded to YouTube 40 video lectures on music topics ranging from motion picture music, punk rock, MTV and hair bands to publishing music, touring and who does what in a record company.

The videos were originally designed for Akkerman’s online classes, but he found viewers from across the world and of all ages were watching his short lectures on musical topics.

He originally limited the videos to 10 minutes because YouTube didn’t allow videos longer than that to be posted.

He still limits the videos to 10 minutes even though YouTube has removed the time limit. “I still find the shorter lectures to be ideal for the attention span of college students,” he said.

Akkerman started using YouTube for lectures in 2009. More than 31,000 viewers have watched, with the most popular – Motown and Soul – having more than 5,000 viewers.

The videos are broken up into digestible segments and are intended for a general audience as a survey of artists and styles.

For instance, in his video on Grunge and Alternative music, Akkerman started by describing Aberdeen, Wash., – the hometown of the band Nirvana’s late lead singer and guitarist – as a gray and drizzly place. The economy was down and Michael Jackson and Madonna dominated pop music.

In the Seattle area, a new sound that fused the general sound of hard rock with funk was created. The musicians played in chords not typically used in rock music. The songs had slower tempos and the lyrics were often about the dark side of the human condition, Akkerman said.

The first grunge band to break onto the national music scene was Nirvana.

Akkerman’s next YouTube video series will relate to his upcoming book, “The Last Balladeer: The Johnny Hartman Story.”

“Johnny Hartman to me is the very voice of romance and is one of those singers that we’ve probably all heard somewhere, we just didn’t know him by name,” Akkerman said.  “I was moved to tell his story and hopefully fill a gap in the history of traditional pop vocalists in American music.”

The videos can be viewed at www.youtube.com/greggakkerman.