History of Jazz Exam 1

Transcriptions

Transcriptions of the same piece of music can vary widely, depending on the quality of the original sound source, the skill of the transcriber, and what the transcriber chooses to include in the notation.

chart

a common term for a jazz band arrangement

cornet

a medium- range brass instrument much like a trumpet but with a larger bore and hence a mellower sound. Heard mostly in New Orleans and Chicago jazz in the 1920s where, like the trumpet, it was a lead instrument.

Swing

generic term for the jazz and much popular music of the mid- thirties through the mid- forties.

Ethnomusicology

is the study of music in a cultural context.

introduction

occurs at the beginning of a piece and sets up the entrance of the melody and first section.

blues scale

A blues scale is a form of scale that incorporates the principal notes used in the blues. Most often, 1- b3 - 4- # 4 - 5- b7.

Blues harmony

features a standard set of chord changes.

Call- and- response

a musical procedure in which a single voice or instrument states a melodic phrase— the call— and a group of voices or instru-ments follows with a responding or completing phrase— the response.

head arrangement

a musical plan and form worked up orally by the players themselves in rehearsal or on the bandstand.

Hot bands

featured faster tempos and dramatic solo and group performances, usually with more improvisation than sweet bands had.

interval

he distance between any two notes.

The ring shout,

he ring shout, originally derived from African religious practice, was a rhythmic dance performed in a circle. Worshipers moved counterclockwise while singing spirituals and accompanying themselves by clapping and stamping. The worshipers ingeniously circumvented the prohibition against dancing— strictly speaking, to lift and cross the feet— by shuffllng. Some historians describe the ring shout as contributing the essence of African song, dance, and spirit to African American music.

lead or front-line instruments

in a jazz ensemble are usually melodic ( playing one note at a time) and are often featured at the front of the stage.

tonic

is the first note of a given scale and forms the " center of gravity" to which all the other notes in the scale relate.

Collective improvisation

is the term often applied to the simultaneous improvising of the New Orleans ( Dixieland) jazz ensemble. The term may also be used to describe free jazz performances that include simultaneous improvisation.

The flat symbol (b)

lowers the pitch of a given note by one-half step.

clarinet

single- reed woodwind instrument.

song plugger

someone who performed a song, usually at a music store, to encourage people to buy the sheet music.

piano trio

a performance group made up of piano, bass, and drums. Another form of the piano trio features piano, bass, and guitar.

player piano

a piano equipped with a mechanism that allows it to play piano rolls.

brass instruments

a player buzzes the lips into a cup- shaped mouthpiece to create sound;

vamp

a repeated melodic or harmonic idea.

vamp

a repeated melodic or harmonic idea. In jazz, its predictability makes it easier for the performer to devise variations or improvise new ideas.

Stride piano

a school of jazz piano performance based on a moving left- hand accompaniment alternating bass notes and chords with an appropriate right hand figuration pulling or tugging at the left hand.

rhythm section

in early jazz bands included three or four players on drums, bass or tuba, and one or more chordal instruments ( piano, banjo, or guitar).

Dynamics

in music address the volume of sound, from very soft to very loud.

Main European contributions to Jazz

instrumentation (significant) form (significant) harmony (significant) arrangements

Tonality

is a Western musical system in which pieces are organized according to harmony within some key or with respect to some central pitch. Western tonality rests on a system of twenty- four major and minor keys.

Boogie- woogie

is a form of blues piano playing in which the performer maintains a driving eighth- note rhythm in the left hand while improvising blues fi gures in the right hand.

Scat singing

is a jazz vocal style in which the soloist improvises with nonsense syllables.

Metronomic sense

is a steady rhythmic pulse, often associated with drums and with music from Africa.

countermelody

(like an obbligato) a secondary melody that accompanies the main melody. A countermelody is generally heard in the trombone or a lower voice, has fewer notes than the obbligato, and is often improvised. is a term borrowed from classical music to describe a complementary melodic part played along with the main melody as a necessary, or expected, addi-tion. In early jazz, obbligato parts were often fl orid, usually played by the clarinet, and sometimes improvised.

Blue note

A blue note is a bent, slurred, or " worried" note. It most often occurs on the third of the scale, but any note can be made " blue" by varying its intonation in a blues or jazz performance.

glissando

A glissando is the sound created by moving the slide of the trombone while holding a note, in jazz known as the tailgate effect. The notes are slurred directly from one to another, producing a continuous rise or fall in pitch.

motive

A motive is a short melodic fragment used as the basis for improvisation or development.

suite

A musical form of the classical European tradition, a suite most often denotes a piece containing several sections, each with distinctive melodies and moods. The sections may be related thematically. Often composers will extract the most popular or most effective sections from extended works, such as operas and ballets, to create a suite for concert performance.

Spirituals

African American songs that arose in the nineteenth century and consisted of religious lyrics with folk melodies. They were often harmonized for vocal choir.

Mixture of European and African musical traditions in Jazz

At the note- to- note level, we hear clear African influences: accents fall in unexpected places, the music shows syncopated movement, and unusual vocal and instrumental timbres are evident. At the level of meter and phrase, we hear both European and African tendencies. Th e harmonic flow is European in origin, yet the syncopation, cross-rhythms, and call- and- response forms are largely of African origin. Finally, at the level of form, the European influence is strongest in such features as sectional structure, tonality, and instrumentation.

Drums

Backbone of the jazz rhythm section

Early Jazz Band Instruments

Clarinet (most common)/Cornet/Trumpet/Trombone/Saxophone Banjo (most common)/Piano/Guitar drums Bass/Tuba

Dixieland or New Orleans jazz

Dixieland is a popular term for the jazz style that originated in New Orleans and flourished in the late 1910s and 1920s. The Dixieland jazz band often had a front line ( of trumpet or cornet, trombone, and clarinet) accompanied by a rhythm section ( of piano, guitar or banjo, bass, and drums). Also called New Orleans jazz.

sections

Form describes how we organize music in time by dividing a work into individual units called sections. Each section contains a set of measures and divides further into sets of measures called phrases. We label a section with a capital letter of the alphabet ( A, B, C, and so on) and label a phrase with a lowercase letter ( a, b, c)— a system that allows us to describe a work's musical form in abbreviated fashion.

Harlem Renaissance

From roughly 1921 to 1928, the Harlem Renaissance was a period of outstanding artistic activity among African Americans. The movement was centered in Harlem in New York City.

song plugger

In the 1920s a song plugger was someone who performed a song, usually at a music store, to encourage people to buy the sheet music.

playing inside vs. playing outside

Jazz musicians are said to be playing inside when their melodic lines favor the principal notes of the harmonies. The more players depart from the notes of the harmonies, the more they are said to be playing outside. These terms are most commonly associated with modern jazz.

shout chorus (out- chorus)

Jazz performances would frequently build to an exciting, climactic chorus, usually performed by the entire ensemble, called ashout chorus . The shout chorus was often the final chorus of the performance, in which case it might also be called an out- chorus.

3 Blues Characteristics that are also found in Jazz

Loosely constructed phrasing Off - beat, syncopated placement of notes and lyrics Use of slides, blue notes, and other vocal embellishments

Meter

Meter in music is a rhythmic pattern arising from regular groupings of two or three beats. These define, respectively, duple or triple meter. Most music with a steady pulse has meter.

5 General West-African Musical Characteristics

Metronomic sense Overlapping Call-and-response Off-beat phrasing of melodic accents--syncopation Dominance of Percussion Polyrhythm

West Africa in 1914

Off - beat phrasing of melodic accents. This is the unexpected accenting of weaker notes within the melody, or what many scholars describe as syncopation. Dominance of percussion. In African music, percussion instruments are plentiful and used more widely than melodic ones, with some exceptions. The melodic instruments themselves are some-times played percussively. Polyrhythm. Th is is an intricate web of rhythms heard among the different parts.

Slash notation

Slash notation is a method of showing the harmonies ( or " chord changes") in jazz and popular music. Each slash in a measure denotes a beat. The arranger places chords over the slashes to show the beats on which the harmonies change.

Stride piano

Stride piano is a school of jazz piano piano performance based on a moving left- hand accompaniment alternating bass notes and chords with an appropriate right- hand figuration pulling or tugging at the left hand.

improvisation or an improvised solo

The essence of jazz---refers to a performance technique in which the improviser or soloist spontaneously creates a melody that fits the form and harmony of the piece.

front line

The front line described the lead ( melody) instruments in early jazz bands and usually included trumpet ( or cornet), trombone, and clarinet. The saxophone came later to jazz.

Dixieland Jazz Characteristics

Typical instrumentation of cornet, clarinet, trombone, piano, banjo, and drums ( string bass or tuba optional) The cornet, clarinet, and trombone as the front line Improvised ensemble sections, with the first cornet taking the lead and the other instruments providing countermelodies and accompaniments Collective improvisation, with the members of the front line often improvising their parts simultaneously A driving 4/ 4 meter, with emphasis on the beat A " hot" style, with exuberant performances by all the musicians Simple rhythm- section parts with all the rhythm instruments articulating the beat

a standard

Unlike the vast majority of popular music, a standard outlasts its contemporaries and enjoys a long- lasting place in current repertories. " I Got Rhythm," for example, is a standard written by George and Ira Gershwin in 1930.

stop time

When the band or rhythm section punctuates beats, it is said to be playing in stop time. Often a band will play in stop time while the soloist improvises breaks during and between the band's chords.

blue note

a bent, slurred, or " worried" note. It most often occurs on the third of the scale, but any note can be made " blue" by varying its intonation in a blues or jazz performance.

cakewalk

a dance involving an exaggerated walk-ng step. In exhibitions of cakewalking, the most talented couple won a cake at the end of the evening. The cake-walk may have been an imitation of the way members of white " high society" comported themselves.

12- bar aab blues form

a form in which the singer typically repeats the first line ( a) of the lyric in the second line ( aa) and in the third line— the b line— supplies a lyric that answers or explains the a line and often rhymes it ( aab).

Minstrelsy

a form of U. S. musical theater and variety show that flourished in the nineteenth century. Traveling troupes performed songs, dances, and skits based on caricatures of African Americans. Performed by both blacks and whites in blackface, minstrelsy is often considered the first distinctively U. S. musical genre.

section

a group of related instruments in a big band; three trumpets and three trombones might form the brass section.

Chord

a group of three or more notes played simultaneously and acts as the basic unit of harmony.

Scat singing

a jazz vocal style in which the soloist improvises using made- up or " nonsense" syllables.

big band

a large jazz ensemble typically including three to four trumpets, three to four trombones, four to five reeds ( saxophones and doublings), and rhythm ( typically piano, guitar, bass, and drums).

tuba

a low brass instrument that sometimes provided the bass part in New Orleans ( Dixieland) and Chicago- style jazz.

bass

a low- pitched stringed instrument and one of the members of the rhythm section in a jazz band.

trombone

a lower brass instrument that changes pitch by means of a slide. ( There is also a less common valve trombone that works largely like a lower- pitched trumpet.) In New Orleans jazz, it typically provides countermelodies to the trumpet lead. It is also an important jazz solo instrument.

Slash notation

a method of showing the harmonies ( or " chord changes") in jazz and popular music. Each slash in a measure denotes a beat. The arranger places chords over the slashes to show the beats on which the harmonies change. ( See Music Examples I- 4 and I- 5 for examples.)

Vibrato

a method of varying the pitch frequency of a note, producing a wavering sound. A vibrato brings a note to life. Heard mostly on wind instruments, strings, and vocals.

rhythm section

a part of a jazz band that pro-vides the rhythmic pulse, harmonies, and bass line. It may include any of the following: piano, guitar, bass, or drums. Early jazz bands sometimes included banjo and tuba in place of the guitar and bass.

countermelody

a separate line that runs in counter-point to the main melody.

partial ( overtone)

a series of higher notes that occurs when a note is sounded and that contributes to the timbre of the original pitch. These higher notes are based on mathematical relationships to the original note, known as the fundamental.

riff

a short melodic idea, usually one to two bars in length, that is repeated as the core idea of a musical passage. Sometimes different band sections will trade riffs in a call-and- response format, often over changing harmonies. Usually rhythmic and simple, the riff also can provide a swinging background for an improvising soloist.

riff

a short melodic idea, usually one to two bars long, that repeats as the core idea of a musical passage.

tag

a short, coda- like section added to the end of a composition to give it closure.

call and response

a single voice or instru-ment states a melodic phrase— the call— while a group of voices or instruments follows with a responding or completing phrase— the response. (Classic call and response)

blues form

a single, 12- bar section that repeats throughout the song and typically divides into three 4- bar phrases. The classic blues featured an aab lyric pattern that fit regular chord changes.

saxophone

a single- reed instrument made of brass that is common in all jazz styles except New Orleans ( Dixieland). The saxophone comes in many sizes and ranges.

Beat

a steady pulse, such as a heartbeat, and an instance of rhythm, the experience of music through time.

guitar

a string instrument played as either a lead instrument ( through picking) or a rhythm instrument (through chord strumming). It can be acoustic or amplified.

banjo

a stringed, strummed instrument that often provided the chords in New Orleans ( Dixieland) and Chicago- style jazz.

time signature

a symbol that appears on a music staff . It consists of two numbers, one on top of the other, that together indicate the music's meter.

glissando

a technique whereby the notes are slurred directly from one to another, producing a continuous rise or fall in pitch.

Obbligato

a term borrowed from classical music to describe a complementary melodic part played along with the main melody as a necessary, or expected, addi-tion. In early jazz, obbligato parts were often fl orid, usually played by the clarinet, and sometimes improvised.

Rhythm changes

a term derived from the form and harmony (or chord changes) of the song " I Got Rhythm."

Strophic

a term used to describe a musical work that has repeated choruses.

triad

a three- note chord, the most basic chord.

plunger

a type of mute derived from a plumber's sink plunger. The rubber cup is held against the bell of the instrument and manipulated with the left hand to alter the horn's tone quality.

Terminal vibrato

a vibrato added to the end of a sustained note.

lick or formula

a worked- out melodic idea that fits a common chord progression.

Harmonic substitution

allows the alteration of the original chord progression by the use of new chords that function similarly to the original chords.

Blues

an African American folk music that appeared around 1900 and exerted infl uence on jazz and various forms of U. S. popular music.

Ragtime

an African American musical genre that flour-shed from the late 1890s through the mid- 1910s and is based on constant syncopation in the right hand often accompanied by a steady march bass in the left hand. Associated now primarily with piano music, ragtime was originally a method of performance that included syncopated songs, music for various ensembles, and arrangements of non- ragtime music. Scott Joplin was ragtime's most famous composer.

stock arrangement, or stock

an arrangement created and sold by a publishing company to bandleaders. In some cases stocks were generic and unimaginative; at other times the arrangements were quite effective. Bands performed stocks to keep up with the latest hit songs. They would either play them as given or modify them to work with their bands' individual styles. back up the tenor soloist.)

race record

an early recording, usually of jazz or blues and typically performed by and marketed to African Americans.

rent party

an informal gathering held to raise money for rent or groceries. At such parties musicians would often gather and perform, sometimes in competition with one another.

octave

an interval of eight notes, in which the notes sound exactly the same but are higher or lower than each other, as in the first two notes of " Take Me Out to the Ball Game."

Polyrhythm

an intricate web of rhythms heard among the different parts.

rading solos— specifically called trading twos, trading fours, and trading eights

are improvisational jazz formats that create climactic moments in performances. In trading twos, for example, each soloist improvises for two bars before the next soloist takes over for two bars. Common since the swing era.

Percussion instruments

are those struck with either the hand or a stick or mallet.

Classic ragtime form

borrowed from the European march form, contains three or four sections, called strains, of 16 bars each.

ABA song form

comprises an eight- bar theme ( A) played twice. A contrasting melody ( B) follows, also usu-ally eight bars long, before the A theme returns. Quite often the second and third A sections will vary slightly.

whole- tone scale

consists only of whole steps, thus making it impossible to form major or minor triads. There are only two whole- tone scales: C- D- E- F # - G # - B b and D b- E b- F- G- A- B. They have no notes in common. The scale is often associated with French twentieth- century composers such as Claude Debussy.

Piano rolls

cylinders of rolled paper punched with holes. When fed through a properly equipped player piano, the holes activate hammers that play the piano automatically.

Harmony

defines a chord, generally a group of three or four notes played simultaneously.

scale

derived from the Italian word for ladder, arranges notes into a series of octaves, the individual notes of which are labeled A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and repeat in ascending or descending order.

Stop time

describes a performance technique in which the rhythm section punctuates distinct beats, often to accommodate a soloist's improvisation between the band's chords.

Polyphony

describes music with at least two distinct and simultaneous melodic lines. Another name for a poly-phonic texture is counterpoint.

chord progression

describes the sequence of chords, usually within a composition.

Mutes

devices played in or over the bells of brass instruments to alter their tone. Different mutes create different kinds of effects, but a muted horn will usually be less brilliant than an " open" one.

ABAC song form

each section is, like the ABA song form, usually eight bars. Musicians often speak of the " first half" of the tune

Chicago jazz

merged the group sound of white, New Orleans bands with the emerging improvisational style and solo emphasis pioneered by Armstrong in the context of larger bands.

Solo breaks or breaks

moments during a jazz per-formance in which the rhythm instruments stop playing while the soloist continues.

Instrumental music

music that lacks vocals.

cadence cadence

occurs at the end of a section or phrase and creates a feeling of closure. It can also refer to a common closing chord progression.

break

occurs when the band stops playing for a short period of time— usually one or two bars— to feature a soloist.

Creoles of Color

people of mixed black and white ancestry. Until the late nineteenth century, they enjoyed more freedom and were better educated than the general black population. Musicians from this group generally had classical training and could read musical scores.

arranger arranger

plans the form of a band's performance and often notates the parts for the diff erent instruments.

Sweet bands

played less syncopated, slower pieces, such as ballads and popular songs.

32- bar AABA song form

presents the melody in four sections labeled A, A, B, and A, each section eight bars long, for a total of 32 bars.

String instruments

produce sound from a player plucking, strumming, or striking strings drawn over a voice box.

Wind instruments

produce sound from players' breaths and divide into two families: brasses and reeds.

The sharp symbol (#)

raises the pitch of a given note by one half- step.

Cross- rhythms or polyrhythms

refer to the performance of simultaneous and contrasting rhythms, such as patterns with duple and triple groupings. By superimposing one rhythmic pattern on another, we create a cross- rhythm.

Pitch

refers to a note's sound relative to its place higher or lower on the music scale.

Comping

refers to a technique in which a pianist or guitarist plays a chord progression in a rhythmically irregular fashion.

Chair

refers to each member of a section, as in first trumpet chair, first trombone chair, and so on.

Tailgate trombone

refers to the New Orleans style of playing trombone with chromatic glissandos. The trombonist would play in the back— on the tailgate— of the New Orleans advertising wagons when the bands traveled during the day to advertise their upcoming dances.

Articulation

refers to the manner in which notes are played, as in legato, a smooth movement through a series of notes, or staccato, short detached strikes on notes in a series.

key

refers to the tonality of a piece of music as determined by the scales and chords that the piece uses. If, for example, a work uses the C scale ( a scale that starts on the note C), the work is said to be in the key of C. A key may take a major or minor form, as indicated by its scale.

bar or measure

represents each instance of the meter.

cutting contest

s a music competition in which players try to surpass, or " cut," one another in the brilliance of their improvisations.

Texture

texture of music arises out of the sum total of all the different sounds you hear— the number and kind of instruments playing and the manner in which they are being played.

head

the A section or principal mel-ody of a song; bridge describes the B section.

Tin Pan Alley

the collective name applied to the major New York City sheet music publishers. Tin Pan Alley flourished from the late 1800s until the mid-twentieth century.

Syncopation

the disruption of regular meter that occurs when the weaker notes of the designated meter receive unexpectedly stronger accents, as in the second and fourth beats in 4/ 4 meter receiving stronger accents.

duple meter

the music alternates between two pulses— one strong and one weak ( ONE- two, ONE- two) or, in a common form of duple meter, the music features four pulses— the first pulse receiving the strongest accent and the third pulse an accent stronger than two and four ( ONE- two- three- four). Most Jazz music has duple meter.

arpeggio

the notes of a chord played in sequence rather than simultaneously.

Meter

the organization of music into regular groups of beats representing strong and weak pulses. Most music has meter.

reed instruments

the player blows through or across a reed that is attached to the mouthpiece to create the sound.

piano

the principal Western keyboard instrument. In jazz it functions as a solo instrument and as part of the rhythm section ( usually with bass and drums and some-times added guitar or banjo).

Melody

the sequential arrangement of the notes of the scale into a coherent pattern.

Timbre

the specific quality of sound in a given instrument or voice.

Tempo

the speed of the music's beat, ordinarily ranging from forty to two hundred beats per minute.

legato

the technique of playing notes smoothly in a connected manner. Opposite of Staccato

Staccato

the technique of playing short detached strikes on notes in a series.

transcribe

to write in standard European musical notation what the listener, or transcriber, hears. The transcriber's notated version is called the transcription.

triple meter

two weak pulses separate a single strong pulse ( ONE- two- three, ONE- two-three).

Syncopation

very common in jazz--is the disruption of regular meter and occurs when the weaker notes of the designated meter receive unexpectedly stronger accents, as in the second and fourth beats in 4/ 4 meter receiving stronger accents.

speakeasy speakeasy

was a Prohibition- era nightclub in which liquor was sold illegally.

Chicago jazz

was a type of New Orleans- style jazz created by Chicago musicians in the 1920s. It merged the group sound of New Orleans bands with the emerging improvisational style and solo emphasis pioneered by Louis Armstrong in the context of larger bands.

prime (i.e.: A')

when added to a section letter indicates that a section repeats but in modified form.