What shaped American Music? * People: conglomeration of cultures. The Elements of Popular Music * Harmonic Progression * Chords that are changing in harmony * Call and Respond * A musical phrase in which the first and often solo part is answered by a second and often ensemble part * Rhythm Four Basic Qualities of Musical Sound * Duration: how long or short * Intensity: how loud or soft * Pitch: how fast or slow the sound vibrates; how high or low * Timbre: distinctive “color” of the sound; ex. Sax vs.
Violin The combination of these four musical elements are what help to organize the music. Duration -> Rhythm (mixture or long and short notes) Intensity -> Dynamics (pp p mp mf f ff) Pitch -> Melody and Harmony * Melody is one note at a time * Harmony is chords where you have notes stacked up together; notes sounding simultaneously Timbre becomes Instrumentation * Tessitura: how an instrument sounds in different ranges Previous Exam Question Rhythm Section – developed in America and set the foundation of today’s music 1. Chord Instrument 2.
Bass Instrument 3. Percussion Instrument Texture – How the music is “interwoven” * Classical and Jazz: counterpoint * Rock Styles: homophonic Counterpoint vs. Homophonic * Counterpoint: a contrapuntal texture, 2-3 or more melodies work together to create the rhythmic energy in piece. * Homophonic: where the bass line coincides with chords (provides roots) Terms to Know Tempo: speed of the beat (think of a metronome) Surface Rhythms: faster rhythms that are emphasized over the basic tempo Measure: a group of beats delineated barlines which separate measures.
Meter/Time Signature: how many beats within a bar (3/4, 4/4) The Basic Rhythms * Quarter-notes * Eighth-notes * Triplets * Sixteenth-notes Evolution of rhythm in Twentieth-Century Pop Music 1920’s – Foxtrot, two-beat (half-notes) 1930-40’s – Swing, four-beat (quarter-notes) 1950-60’s – Rock n’ Roll (eighth-notes) 1970-80’s – Latin-Rhythms in pop music and disco (sixteenth-notes) 1990’s – Techno (thirty-second notes) Backbeat- something is struck on beats TWO and FOUR * found commonly in almost all American popular music Melody * The horizontal organization of pitches Involving Shape and Rhythem * Riff based melodies * Repetition or Development Scale * the “normal” scale – technically known as Major Scale * Octave 1-8 * “Key” * major and minor * Seven chords in a key Previous Exam Questions * three most important chords – I IV V * Most common progression in jazz – II V I American Music Heritage Previous Exam Question: * Three Main Sources * The European Heritage (Classical Music) * Anglo-American Folksong (Folk Music) * African Heritage * Western Music * Carefully crafted melodies * High point/low point in line.
Careful text setting * Syllabic vs. Melismatic * Syllabic – one syllable of text for every note. * Melismatic – melody covered several notes for one syllable of text * Harmony – sophisticated hierarchy of chords * Ex: I ii iii IV V vi vii * Form – teleological form/goal-oriented forms/sectionalized * Ex: sonata form, minuet and trio form etc. AABA and ABAB * Westerns favorite forms that had chunks * Notation – music of extreme specificity * Created the orchestra – establishment of ensemble units, orchestration Neumes’ * how high or low the melodies are. Two most common forms in Jazz * AABA * ABAB Anglo-American Folk Song * Lots of repetition with no variation * Little harmonic variety * Verse-chorus form African-American Heritage * Percussion plays continuously with a vocal line sung or spoken over top of the drums * Rhythm and Texture: syncopation, complex rhythmic layering, vocals and non-pitched instruments, smooth continuum between speech and song. * Form: stasis; not goal-oriented, not sectionalized * Harmony: no chord progression, harmonic stasis Call and Repsonse Griot and the Kora African story teller and west African harp Previous Exam Question: * Between 1750 and 1843, over 5,000 theater and circus productions included blackface (mockery of the African-American race and culture) – turned into musical shoes – minstrelsy Stephen Foster * The most famous songwriter of the nineteenth-century American popular music. * Foster composed both minstrel and parlor songs Words to Know Arpeggio – color of an instrument – acoustic principle make it sound different Tempo – speed of the beat
Meter – how many counts per measure Riff – short, repeated pattern The Blues * A feeling indicated by the lyrics * A style of various types of inflections: bent notes, rough voice, cracked notes etc. * A form – 12-bar blues * Perpetual noodling/riffs over the blues scale * Blue notes (note not within the major scale * Read/Repeat/Rhyme lyrics * Two types of blues * Country Blues * Oldest type of blues * Work songs, evening entertainment * Urban Blues * Forms and harmonic pacing are much more fixed than the country blues. Cyclical Form Blues would loop around the circle of I IV V chords Bessie Smith * In the 1920’s massive migration of Afro-American to the north * “Empress of Blues” * Rough Style * Blues on Stage – vaudeville troupes W. C. Handy - Father of the Blues. First to publish a blues song. - St. Louis Blues – combine fox-trot beat with blues form! Dominate Chords in Jazz * I IV V Lyric/Poetic Form (Read/Repeat/Rhyme) Previous Exam Question * Line 1 (Statement), Line 2 (Repeated), Line 3 (Varied with end-rhyme) Words to Know Pentatonic Scale – doesn’t always have a sharp 4
Blues – Form of music. Form relates to lyrics and chord progression. Lyric Form – State, Repeat, Rhyme Country Blues – Free in Form Urban Blues – 12 Bar Blues Ragtime – Syncopation * Piano Rags * Ragtime Songs Marching Music * John Phillip Sousa becomes the greatest conductor and composer of his time for march music. * Woodwinds * Brass * Percussion * Sectionalized form * 16 Bar Strains * The “C” portion is the “Trio” and is played in softer dynamics * Two-beat feel – low brass playing beats 1 and 3 * Cymbals on the backbeat. *
