Music Chapter 1

Which of the following is true about African American ballads of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries?

They celebrated the exploits of black heroes and "bad men.".

What role did song pluggers play in the music industry from the nineteenth century until the 1920s?

They promoted songs and convinced big stars to perform them.

Mexican immigrants in California played an important role in the development of rock music.

True

A capella

Vocal singing that involves no instrumental accompaniment

Tune families

"a seeming multiplicity of melodies," reducible, "to a small number of 'models' or sets." One can think of the models or sets as deep structures. Often, "different tunes are the same," and, "the same tune is different." (example "Soldier's Joy")

Syncopation

"off beat" patterns; shifts the note before or behind the beat, plays with expectation of where we think the beat should occur, and helps to loosen up the rhythm and give it life

El Canto

"the song," in which lead singer sings verses that establish the identity of the piece and its central topic, and a group of singers answers with repeated chorus

Quito

1 high-pitched drum

Tumbadores

2 low-pitched drums

Milonga

A blend of the "habanera" and the "Candombé" rhythms; Congolese word meaning "argument" or "contest"

Dialect

A regional speech variant; used to describe stylistic variants within the same musical genre (i.e. Mississippi Delta blues and East Texas blues)

Akonting

American banjo's ancestor; three-stringed lute payed by the Jola people of Senegal and the Gambia

"Silent Night"

a German song of Christian devotion originally composed in 1818

Broadsides

a ballad that is written on a single sheet of paper; popular through 17th-19th centuries—early form of sheet music

Spirituals

a body of sacred songs originating from breakaway movements (i.e. Separatist Baptists)

A&R (artists and repertoire)

Department of a record company whose responsible for discovering and cultivating new musical talent, and to find material for the artists to perform; as well as commercial potential

From which stream of influence does the "high lonesome sound" commonly heard in country music hail?

European American stream

Which of the following is true about the Afro-Cuban rumba?

It accompanies dances featuring sexual role-playing and was originally suppressed by Cuban authorities.

Gospel music

Religious-themed popular music performed by both white and African American musicians. White groups such as the Carter Family performed restrained versions of traditional American hymns. Black groups drew their inspiration from the enthusiastic, deeply felt singing of black church choirs.

Which southern string band did James Gideon (Gid) Tanner lead?

Skillet Lickers.

"Sawmill"

Special tuning system on the banjo used similarly on the Akonting and other African stringed instruments

Which Latin dance style did Irene and Vernon Castle and movie star Rudolph Valentino help popularize in the early twentieth century?

Tango

Musical process

The analysis of how music actually sounds (grain of singing voice, flow of a dance groove, or the sound of an electric guitar)

Arrastré

expressive effect know as a "drag"--a sweeping gesture that tango musicians use to give the rhythm and the dancers a little push from time to time

El Montuno

final climatic section organized around call-and-response patterns, accelerated tempo, increased energy, and drummers and dancers reach peak of virtuosity/self-expression; typically longest section of a rumba guaguanco song

Work songs

flourished primarily in the prison system and before the mechanization of agriculture during 20th century; helped to coordinate individual work efforts and avoid physical danger

Sharecroppers

former black slaves who continued to work for previous slave owners because they were denied opportunities elsewhere; lived on extended credit and worked to pay off debt

A term that evokes the channeled flow of "swinging" or "funky" or "phat" rhythms is called a ___________________.

groove.

A memorable musical phrase or riff is called a _________________.

hook.

Verses

in general usage, this term refers to a group of lines of poetic text, often rhyming, that usually exhibit regularly recurring metrical patterns.

Folk music

in the most general sense, music that is orally transmitted and closely bound up with the daily lives and customs of local communities.

Refrain

in the verse-refrain song, it is the "main part" of the song, usually constructed in AABA or ABAC form

Carlos Gardel

international film and recording star; French born superstar of tango

Shekere

large rattle made of a dried gourd surrounded by a web of cords strung with beads or cowrie shells

Abakuá

male secret society controlling much of the work on the docks and whose beliefs and ritual practices were largely derived from the cultures of southeastern Nigeria

Hook

memorable musical phrase or riff

"Camp Meetings"

multiday, open-air religious services that attracted thousands of people from all denominations

Rumberos

musicians specializing in the Rumba

"Trickster"

mythical character from African folklore who outsmarted oppressors mentally rather than physically

British ballad tradition

one of the main roots of American music and is the predecessor of such diverse genres as urban folk, country, and rock n' roll

La Diana

opening, improvised melodic passage sung in "nonsense syllables" by lead singer

Habanera

originally the "Contradanza;" "Spanish tinge" in American jazz

Composer

person who creates a piece of music; more commonly applied to those who create more extended, formally notated works of music

String band tradition

provides rich evidence of the impact of new environments on the traditions that English, Scots, Irish, and Welsh immigrants brought with them to the Americas

Timbre

quality of a sound or "tone color"

Riff

repeated pattern designed to generate rhythmic momentum

Candombé

rhythms that were African-derived; genre created by slaves from Angola and the Congo

A repeated pattern designed to generate rhythmic momentum is called a ____________.

riff.

Rancheras

romantic songs originally performed by a solo singer with a guitar that are today played by a wide range of ensembles

"Fertile crescent of country music" (Petersen and Davis 1975)

rural "backcountry" of the American South--huge area reaching from coastal tidewaters of VA and isolated communities of the Appalachian Mountains to the "piney woods" of east Texas and the Ozarks region of AR and MO

"Hush quarters"

secretly organized spaces for slaves to worship

Arrabales

slums the gauchos were forced to live in

Groove

term that evokes the channeled flow of "swinging," "funky," or "phat" rhythms

Improvisation

the art or act of composing, uttering, executing, or arranging anything without previous preparation

Banjo

the instrument most commonly cited as evidence of continuity with West African tradition in the US; also called banger or banjar; 3 or 4 stringed lute created with a dried gourd (calabash), covered with a dried animal skin, and given a wooden stick for a neck

Rhythm

the musical organization of time

Polyrhythmic

the simultaneous sounding of rhythms in two or more contrasting meters, such as three against two, or five against four. They are found in abundance in African and Asian music and their derivatives.

Lyrics

the words of a song

Contradanza

this Cuban dance was the first Latin American style to have a major international impact. It's an African-influenced variant of the French country dance tradition; became fashionable in Europe by the name "habanera."

The quality of sound, sometimes called "tone color," is ____________________.

timbre.

"Songster"

tradition of African American secular music-making that predates emergence of the blues; known for playing wide range of genres and mobility along riverboat and railroad routes

Palitos

two sticks used to play a precisely repeated pattern against the wooden side of one of the low-pitched drums

Claves

two wooden dowels struck together in a different repeated pattern, interlocking with palitos

Dance music

until late 19th century, this was closely modeled on styles imported from England and Europe—Country dances (contra dance, quadrille, reel, square dance) were all popular

Lunfardo

urban slang

Pampas

vast, rolling grasslands

Formal analysis

Listening for musical structure, its basic building blocks, and the ways in which these blocks are combined

Conjunto acordeon ("accordion band")

Mexican music genre inspired by European polka

Corrido

Mexican parallel to the ballad song tradition

Urban Folk Music

More specifically, a popular music style of the late 1950s and early 60s featuring guitar-playing singer/songwriters who often addressed topical issues. Bob Dylan began his career as one of these kinds of singers.

Carioca

Most influential variant of Brazilian samba in the US; smooth style developed in Rio de Janeiro

Capoeira

Brazilian martial art/dance/music genre

Which legendary French-born superstar of tango was inspired by operatic bel canto singing and the criollo songs of the Argentine gauchos?

Carlos Gardel

Rural son

Cuban parallel of country music

Which of the following is true about the diddley bow?

It is a musical instrument adapted from the African one-stringed zither.

Which of the following is true about Brazilian bossa nova music?

It was popularized in the United States by songs like "The Girl from Ipanema.".

Which guitarist lived from 1888 until 1937, worked with Carlos Gardel, and demonstrated the importance of Afro-Argentine musicians in the tango tradition?

Jose ("El Negro") Ricardo

Call-and-response

a characteristic feature of much African American music, in which musical forces alternate with one another, usually in quick succession; these forces may be a solo singer with a chorus or backing group, sung lines with guitar or band passages, an instrumental solo with a larger instrumental group, or other groupings. This form of expression has spread to many musical styles and genres but is a characteristically African phenomenon in its origins and so is most associated in America with African American expression.

Guaguanco

a couple dance in which a symbolic game of "rooster and hen" style flirtation is enacted, featuring symbolic suggestive move by the male (the vacunao, or "vaccination")

Backbeat

a notion that the underlying pulse of music can be strengthened by playing against it, rather than with it. (i.e. In rock music and African American gospel—the accenting of the 2nd and 4th beat of a four-beat bar)

Producer

a person engaged either by a recording artist or, more often, a record company, who directs and assists the recording process.

Arranger

a person who adapts (or arranges) the melody and chords of a song to exploit the capabilities and instrumental resources of a particular musical ensemble

Lyricist

a person who supplies a poetic text (lyrics) to a piece of vocal music; doesn't have to be composer

Spirit possession

a phenomenon in which participant fall under the sway of the Holy Spirit, achieving a direct, personal communion with a higher power

Bandoneón

a reedy-sousing cousin of the concertina and accordion

Chorus

a repeating section within a song consisting of a fixed melody and lyric that is repeated exactly each time that it occurs, typically following one or more verses

Strophic

a song form that employs the same music for each poetic unit in the lyrics

Black spirituals

a type of sacred song created by and for African Americans that originated in oral tradition.

Ballads

a type of song consisting usually of verses set to a repeating melody (see strophic form) in which a story, often romantic, historic, or tragic, is sung in narrative fashion—often printed as sheet music, but previously passed down as an oral tradition

"Great Awakening"

a wave of Protestant religious activity and conversion

"Metronome sense"

ability of those to maintain an internalized pulse that acts as a framework for organizing and interpreting musical time

Mufarse

ability to reflect upon one's destiny with a kind of bittersweet satisfaction

Diddley bow

adaption of the African one-stringed zither

Polish polka

an energetic dance quite different from the "refined" style of ballroom polka

Upbeat

an unaccented beat or one that doesn't occur on the stronger quarter note beats

Jewish klezmer music

band music played for dances and weddings in central European Jewish communities

"La Cumparsita"

best know composition from tango tradition

Old-time music

category that comprises string band music (ranging from fiddle and banjo duets to larger dance ensembles w/ guitar, mandolin, and autoharp); ballad songs, performed with or without instrumental accompaniment; sacred songs and church hymns; and a variety of functionally specialized music genres such as lullabies and work songs

Cantillation

chanting of scripture

Argentine Gauchos

cowboys who originally inhabited vast, rolling grasslands (pampas), forced into poor neighborhoods in the city