Music is a lifestyle for William Echard

by Amber Hildebrandt

When he’s not teaching about popular music in the classrooms at Carleton University, he’s researching his latest project or playing in his band.

“I’m always involved in music and try to be involved on as many levels as I can,” said Echard.

Echard is an associate professor of music whose research focuses on popular music, with a concentration in post-1950s rock.

In July, Echard released his first book, a 260-page analysis of the life and work of rock icon Neil Young titled “Neil Young and the Poetics of Energy.”

In his spare time, Echard practises and performs with his band Sedrick, a garage band that plays an eclectic mix of music.

The band’s name comes from the cat of his wife, Lillian’s former roommate. Echard chose it for the blank slate it provided – most people have no associations with the word and make no assumptions about the type of music to expect from the band.

Echard and his wife both come from musical backgrounds and write for the band. In fact, they met when studying a degree in the theory and composition of music at the University of Western Ontario.

Echard went on to study ethnomusicology in the department of music at York University, where he completed a master’s thesis examining the early work of Stompin’ Tom.

In 2000, he completed a Ph.D at York with a dissertation on a musicological and social-semiotic perspective of Neil Young’s work.

He joined Carleton University as a lecturer for the School for Studies in Art and Culture in 1999.

“There are not too many schools in Canada where I could have been a popular music specialist.”

Echard usually teaches about five courses during the course of an academic year, but is presently on sabbatical researching his next project – a look at the language early rock critics from the mid-1960s formed to critique music.