What shall we do with The Beatles? : methodology of musicology and rock music

The article presents the possible input of musicologists in terms of popular music studies. It describes basic differences between rock and classical music, being still in the centre of attention of traditional musicology, and underlines the necessity of analysing musical recordings instead of relying on score music. New terminology is proposed – both original and based on Western scholars’ experiences – especially relating to formal structure. The author also analyses different approaches to rhythmics (advocating that scholar himself needs to divide a song into bars), harmonics and melodics (presenting popular models), and instrumentation (underlining the importance of sound processing methods).