A Reimagining of Popular Music Interpretation Through Barthes’s Third Meaning: Implications for General Music Teacher Education

Popular music is valuable in music teacher education because it can allow the considering of divergent and unique perspectives. However, viewing popular music making as a static process can constrain its values. Drawing on the work of Roland Barthes (1977), the purpose of this philosophical inquiry is to examine the limitations of current ways of interpreting popular music and to reimagine popular music interpretation in general music teacher education. After providing an overview of Barthes’s (1977) three levels of meaning—the information level of meaning, the symbolic level of meaning, and the third meaning—I problematize popular music interpretation at the first two levels because it reassures individuals’ current ways of being, reinforcing what is. In response to the closed ways of interpreting popular music that confine how popular music can be valued and engaged, I propose interpreting popular music through the third meaning during which individuals no longer passively receive what is, but actively explore what might be as well as whom they might connect with and become. Additionally, I offer practical applications on how one can relate, express, connect, and become through the third meaning in the context of general music teacher education.