Music Exam 1
birth of tin pan alley continued
-1890s saw the rise of the modern american music business -the wholesale value of printed music in the US more than tripled between 1890 and 1909
Ferdinand "Jelly Roll" Morton
-New Orleans jazz pianist -took Joplin's composition and treated it as the basis for extended, rhythmically complex improvisations
center-periphery model
-center- several geographically distinct centers where power, capital and control over mass media are concentrated -"periphery"- smaller institutions and people historically excluded from the political and economic mainstream
technology
-has shaped popular music and has helped disseminate it
original dixieland jazz band
-made the first recording with the name "jass" in New York -white group from new orleans -landed a recording contract with victor recores -within weeks created a national fad for jazz music -biggest hit was recording of tiger rag composed by LaRocca
Paul Dresser
-one of the most popular composers of the early tin pan alley period
ballad
-series of verses telling a story are sung in repeating melody -often about a historical event or personal tragedy -strophic musical form -eventually written down and circulated on large sheets of paper called broadsides
licensing and copyright agencies
-set up to control the flow of profits from the sale and broadcast of popular music -ASCAP (American Society of Composers, authors and publishers) founded in 1914, forced all business establishments that featured live music to pay fees (royalties) for the public use of music
tin pan alley song form
-song forms inherited from the 19th century -AABA -verse and chorus -songs had two major sections: verse and the refrain/chorus
the banjo
-stringed instrument developed by slave musicians from African prototypes during the early colonial period -basic patterns of ragtime music were transferred from the banjo
Cole Porter
-studied classical music at yale, harvard, and the schola cantorum in paris
contradance or country dance tradition
-until the early 20th century, social dancing among white Americans was dominated by offshoots of the contradance or country dance tradition
Three streams of American pop music
1. European American Music 2. African American Music 3. Latin American music
"How deep is the ocean"
Bing Crosby
"After the Ball"
Charles Harris
El Manciero (the peanut vendor)"
Don Azpiazu and His Havana Casino Orchestra
"East St. Louis Toodle‐Oo"
Duke Ellington
"My blue heaven"
George Whiting
"Cheek to Cheek"
Irving Berlin
"Castle House Rag"
James Reese Europe
"Stars and Stripes forever"
John Philip Sousa
"Maple leaf rag"
Scott Joplin
Jazz age
an era in american popular culture sparked by the success of the recordings of the original dixieland jazz band -new subculture emerged from the white upper and middle classes: jazz babies, flappers, jazzbos, sheiks
timbre
characteristic sound of an instrument or voice -sometimes called "tone color" -plays an important role in establishing the "soundprint" or a performer
ragtime songs
coon songs: -popular among white audiences from the 1890s until WWI -usually accompanied by a simplified version of the syncopated rhythms of ragtime piano music -growing market for ragtime songs at the turn of the century suggests a continuation of the white fascination with African American music first evinced in minstrelsy -most popular ragtime songs were vigorous march-style songs with a few "irregular" rhythms added for effect
dialect
some musical genres are strongly associated with particular dialects
hell fighters band
-Europe enlisted into the NY national guard and was asked to form a military band -played several concerts in paris -had a successful concert tour -made recordings for pathe, a french company with a studio in NY
I got rhythm
-an up tempo tin pan alley song -verse-refrain form
latin american stream
-developed a wide range of styles blending african music with the traditions of Europe -latin music, particularly from cuba and brazil, has increasingly influenced popular music in America -caribbean, south american and mexican traditions have long influenced popular music in the US
castle house rag
-documents the transition between ragtime and syncopated dance music -faster tempo than traditional ragtime -instrumentation->popular dance orchestra -form: multisectional -syncopation
New Orleans Jazz
-earliest style of jazz originated in New Orleans around 1900 -New Orleands contained a unique mix of white, creole, french, spanish and black communities -cultural mix helped form a hybrid musical culture unlike that in any other american city -the term jazz carried multiple meanings in New Orleans (strictly musical references: speeding up or intensifying)
ragetime music
-emerged in the 1880s -popularity peaked in the decade after turn of century -ragtime initially was piano music but gradually came to identify any syncopated music -word derives from the African American term "to rag," meaning to enliven a piece of music by shifting melodic accents onto the offbeats (technique known as syncopation) -began as an obscure folk-dance music played up and down the Mississippi valley during last quarter of the 19th century -ragtime energized popular music in America by adding rhythmic vitality to the music
salsa
-emerged in the 1960s -stars of salsa music include the great singer Celia Cruz and bandleader Tito Puente -in the 1980s, miami sound machine created a commercially successful blend of salsa and sico music
europe's society orchestra
-europe's society orchestra became the first black group to sign a contract with a record company -europe's band was noted for its superior ability to perform syncopated ragtime and tango arrangements
european religious music
-europeans who came to america brought many styles and traditions of religious music to our shores -echoes of synagogue cantorial in tin pan alley songs -christmas songs
Jeanie with the light brown hair
-example of Foster's sentimental "Irish" style, strongly reminiscent of the songs of Thomas Moore -An example of a form that would become increasing common in American popular music: *four section song with an AABA melodic structure -the A section begin identically, but the endings vary slightly -B section introduces a new melody and chords and acts as a musical "bridge" that leads us to the final A section
hollywood
-films with synchronized sound- the "talkies" became an important medium for promoting songs and "star" entertainers -LA began to compete with NYC as a center of the national entertainment industry
"King" Joe Oliver and the creole jazz band
-first representative recordings of New Orleans-style jazz as made by "king" joe oliver and his creole jazz band -more relaxed and flowing rhythmic feeling -syncopations smoother and less jerky -improvisation plays a prominent role
tango
-from argentina -initially played by musician sin the capital city buenos aires -influenced by: *cuban habanera rhythm *italian and spanish songs *the songs of gauchos
minstrelsy
-from the 1840s through the 1880s, the predominant genre in the United States -an important influence on the mainstream of American Popular song -minstrel troupes toured the US, helping create an embryonic national popular culture -minstrel show is the direct ancestor of vaudeville
european folk music
-immigration brought a wide variety of european folk music to america -the mainstream of english-dominated popular song and dance music was surrounded by a myriad of folk and popular styles brought by immigrants from other parts of europe
1917-1935
-incredible profits in the music business -organizations were set up to control the flow of profits from mass-reproduced music -radio networks broadcast the latest songs and artists coast to coast -vaudeville entertainment went into a gradual decline-replaced by broadway musicals
African american stream continued
-interlocking of multiple repeating patterns to form dense polyrhythmic textures (textures in which many rhythms are going on at the same time) -one common west african rhythm pattern has generated many variants in the Americas, including the "hambone" riff -African singers and instrumentalists often make use of a wide palette of timbres
rise of the phonograph
-invented in 1877 by Thomas Alva Edison and at around the same time by a french inventor named Charles Cros -energy from sound waves was transferred to a foil or wax cylinder, which could then be used to reproduce the original sounds
Paul Whiteman "king of jazz"
-joined the denver symphony orchestra -formed a seven-piece dance band -incredible commercial success -widened the market for jazz-based dance music and paved the way for the swing era
Virginia Minstrels
-let by white banjo virtuoso Dan Emmett, created a lengthy stage performance that featured a standardized group of performers -Dan Emmett claimed to have written "dixie's land"
New Orleans's diverse musical traditions
-marching bands -mardi gras and funerary processions -french and italian opera -caribbean and mexican music ("latin tinge") -tin pan alley songs: african american song traditions
brass bands
-military bands made up of brass instruments spread rapidly during and after the civil war -drew energy from the interaction of patriotism and popular culture
march songs
-ragtime-influenced songs that were less derogatory in content than coon songs
technology and the music business
-record industry expanded rapidly after WWI -music industry increasingly relied on phonograph records, rather than sheet music, as the main means of promoting songs and artists -introduction of radio and the great depression caused a precipitous decline in the record industry
Charles K Harris
-self taught banjo player -could not write down music -dictated his songs to a professional musician -published "after the ball": *first mega-hit pop song *eventually sold over 5 million copies in sheet music
Harry von Tilzer
-sometimes referred to as the "daddy of popular song" -successful turn of the century songwriter -was a calculating composer: one of his hints for aspiring songwriters was to keep the tunes to a limited range so that even a baby could hum them -songs of Dresser and von Tilzer represent the commercial peak of the 19th century parlor song
alexander's ragtime band
-song that first brought berlin mass acclaim -sold 1.5 million copies
George Gershwin
-songwriter who did the most to bridge the gulf between art music and popular music -studied european classical music but also spent a great deal of time listening to jazz musicians in NYC -songs set new standards in excellence in terms of harmonic complexity and melodic flow influenced by jazz and blues -success in the world of concert music and popular music
Vaudeville
-theatrical form descended from music hall shows and minstrelsy -by turn of century, it had become the most important medium for popularizing tin pan alley songs -shows typically consisted of a series of performances presented one after the other without any overarching narrative theme
minstrel show
Featured mainly white performers who artificially blackened their skin and carried out parodies of African American music, dance, dress and dialect
"Embraceable You"
George and Ira Gershwin
"I Got Rhythm"
George and Ira Gershwin
"Tiger Rag"
Nick LaRocca and the ODJB
"Jeanie with the light brown hair"
Stephen Foster
hook
catchy musical phrase or riff
groove
channeled flow of "swinging" or "funky" or "phat" rhythms
riff
repeated pattern designed to generate rhythmic momentum
phonograph discs
two companies dominated the american market in phonograph discs at the turn of the century -columbia records -victor talking machine company
dance music in the jazz age
-"hot": specialized in syncopated jazz arangements popular at college dances -"sweet": romantic and nostalgic music -"latin": music to accompany ballroom adaptations of south american and caribbean dances, reignited national fascination with latin american music and ballroom dance steps
radio
-1920: The first three commercial radio stations in the U.S. were established (KDKA in Pittsburgh, WWJ in Detroit, and WJZ in Newark). -1926: The first nationwide commercial radio network was established (National Broadcasting Company [NBC]). -1927: There were over 1,000 radio stations in the United States.
John Philip Sousa
-America's "March King" -most popular bandleader of the late 19th and early 20th centuries -became the marine band's conductor and later formed a successful "commercial" concert band touring the US and Europe -band performed a mixture of marches, original works for band and popular music of the day
revues
-Featured sequences of diverse skits, songs, dances, and performers -Shows that were obvious successors to vaudeville, with titles such as "Follies" and "Scandals," remained popular with audiences of the time.
George Washington Dixon
-First white performer to establish a wide reputation as a "blackface" entertainer -his act featured two of the earliest ethipian songs: "long tail blue" and "coal black rose"
"After the ball"
-Harris paid a well-known singer in a traveling theater production to incorporate "after the ball" into his performance -it soon became the most popular part of the play, and audiences requested that it be repeated several times during each performance -tells a tragic story of lost love in the ballad tradition -walt time, 3/4 meter -form is strophic (verse-chorus)
maple leaf rag
-Joplin's first successful piece -published in 1899 and became a huge hit, spreading Joplin's fame to Europe and beyond -"maple leaf" started a nationwide craze for syncopated music -AABBACCDD -Right hand (melody) plays syncopated ("offbeat" or "staggered") rhythms and riff-based melodies, usually built on three-note patterns. -Left hand (accompaniment) plays regular bass part; march-like, two-beat patterns.
tin pan alley and broadway
-Mutually beneficial relationship between Tin Pan Alley Songs and Broadway shows -Close proximity -Fruitful relationship in the 1920s and 1930s -The so-called Golden Age of Tin Pan Alley song
what makes a song a standard?
-Songs that remain an essential part of the repertoire of today's jazz musicians and pop singers -Possess a continuing appeal that surpasses nostalgia -Tin Pan Alley composers produced many standards.
European Music
-The cultural and linguistic dominance of the English meant that their music (folk ballads and dance music) became a mainstream around which other styles circulates
verse
-The verse usually sets up the dramatic context or emotional tone of a song. -Verses were the most important part of nineteenth-century popular songs. -They were regarded as mere introductions by the 1920s. -Today, the verses of Tin Pan Alley songs are rarely performed.
refrain
-Today, this is what is generally considered the "song." -It is usually made up of four sections of equal length: *"A"—the main melody, basic pattern of lyrics and a set of chord changes to support them *The music of the "A" section is repeated with new lyrics, often with slight variations *"The bridge"—new material, new melody, and new chord changes *A melody and chords are repeated.
rock n roll
-When rock 'n' roll took over the pop charts in the later 1950s, the connection between Broadway and mainstream popular song had completely dissolved.
technology and the music business continued
-acoustic recording: early process for recording sound vibrations -electrical recording: introduced in 1925; sound is converted to an electric signal -radio: commercial stations introduced in 1920 -sound film: introduced in 1927, became an important means for the dissemination of popular music
James Reese Europe
-african american musician and bandleader -studied violin and music theory from the assistant director to the US marine corps band -moved to NYC: found few opportunities for black musicians, played ragtime piano in cabarets, directed the music for several all-black vaudevill revues -found the clef club: social club, booking agency and trade union for african american musicians in NYC -Castles attended a society party in NYC where they danced to Europe's clef club orchestra. The castles made James Reese Europe their musical director
cuban habanera
-african influenced variant of the european country-dance tradition that swept the US and Europe in 1880s -characteristic habanera rhythm- an eight beat pattern dived 3-3-2
zip coon
-after Rice's "Jim Crow" became famous, George Washington Dixon performed as "zip coon" -"Jim Crow" was supposed to be a southern slave, dressed in rags; "Zip" was supposed to be a northern, urban, dandified black -ethiopian song hit -verse-chorus ballad form -versees contain images of banjo playing, wild dancing and barnyard animals
Irving Berlin
-began career as a singing waiter -achieved his first success writing ragtime influenced popular songs -most productive, varied and creative of the tin pan alley songwriters -catalog of his compositions available in print included 899 songs -wrote songs for the broadway stage and for sound film
Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake
-began their career with James Reese Europe's orchestra -launched the first successful all-black broadway musical, shuffle along -portrayed romantic relationships between black characters without resorting to degrading stereotypes
"freak dances": turkey trot and tango
-beginning of the 20th century, several changes took place in American social dancing -most important was the intensified influence of African American dance -dance fads loosely based on black styles included the turkey trot, the bunny hug, the grizzly bear and the most popular, the fox-trot -turkey trot was banned in some places because it was seen as a threat to public morality
Vernon and Irene Castle
-biggest media superstars of the WWI era -husband and wife dance team who did more than anyone to change the course of social dancing in America -established an image of mastery, charisma, and romance -made syncopated dance acceptable to the mainstream -created a simple way to learn dances such as the fox trot and tango
brazilian music
-brazilian samba, another dance style strongly rooted in African music -carioca: the variant of samba that had the biggest influence in the US
birth of tin pan alley
-by the end of the nineteenth century, the American music publishing business had become centered in NYC -the established publishers were being challenged by smaller companies specializing in the more exciting popular songs performed in dance halls, beer gardens and theaters -these new publishing firms had offices in a section of lower Manhattan, a dense hive of small rooms with pianos where composers and "song pluggers" produced and promoted popular songs -tin pan alley was a term that evoked the clanging sound of many pianos simultaneously paling songs in a variety of keys and tempos
Italian opera
-by the first decades of the 19th century, Italian opera was popular in the US -the bel canto style of singing (light, clear, flexible and intimate) had a major effect on the development of popular singing style
early jazz bands
-combination of violin, guitar, mandolin and string bass and sometimes a wind instrument -"hot" or "ratty" ragtime-based music was being performed in New Orleans, largely as an accompaniment for dancing -rowdy contexts for social dancing encouraged the addition of instruments that could project over the noise of a boisterous crowd
mexican music
-conjunto acordeon (accordion band) music, played in northern mexico and texas -mariachi (marriage) music, a staple of the mexican tourist trade, performed by ensembles made up of guitars, violins and trumpets -country and western music has been influenced by Mexican -mexican immigrants in californi (chicanos) have played an important role in the development of rock music
bossa nova
-cool, sophisticated style of brazilian music -became popular in the US during early 1960s
popular music
-created with commercial success in mind -popular music can be used to indicate: *music that is mass produced and disseminated via the mass media *at various times has been listened to by large numbers of americans *draws on a variety of preexisting musical traditions
Thomas Dartmouth Rice
-demonstrated the potential popularity and profitability of minstrelsy with the song "Jim Crow" -"Daddy" Rice's Jim Crow character. Spoke and sang in a dialect that was based partly on preexisting white rural characters
Foster's success was supported by a number of social and technological factors:
-minstrel troupes performed his song on their tours -sheet music -rapid growth of public music education -expanded domestic production of cheap pianos -the parlor *Foster died in poverty because copyright enforcement in mid-nineteenth century did not favor songwriters
African American stream
-misleading to speak of black music as a homogeneous entity -african american culture took different forms in Brazil, Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica and the US, shaped by the particular mix of african and european source traditions, and by local social conditions -syncretism, the selective blending of traditions derived from Africa and Europe -creation of institutions that became important centers of black musical life (family, church, voluntary association, school) -call and response forms (lead singer and chorus alternate, the leader allowed more freedom to elaborate his part) -repetition of musical/rhythmic ideas
whiteman's symphonic jazz
-mixture of syncopation and careful arrangement, rhythmic pep and gentility -whiteman widened the market for jazz-based dance music and paved the way for the swing era
the grand ball
-modeled on the aristocratic occasions of european royalty -provided an important public venue for Americans hoping to demonstrate their refinement and knowledge of high culture
Scott Joplin
-most famous ragtime composer of the era -best known for his piano rags -developed a "ragging" piano style, improvising around the themes of popular songs and marches in a syncopated style -helped popularize the style through his piano arrangements, published as sheet music -his rags were widely heard on player pianos -player pianos were elaborate mechanical devices activated by piano rolls- spools of paper with punched holes that controlled the movement of the piano's keys
Stephen Foster
-most influential songwriter of American popular song during the 19th century -composed around two hundred songs during the 1840s, 1850s and early 1860s -foster was probably the first person in the US to make his living as a full-time professional songwriter -earliest musical experiences were dominated by the sentimental song tradition -foster knew and incorporated into his work the various song styles popular in mid-century america
jazz craze
-next stage in the african americanization ballroom dance was the so-called jazz craze -began during WWI and continued through the 1920s
James A Bland
-one of the best-known and most successful composers of plantation songs -first successful black songwriter -an ex-minstrel show performer from a midde-class background -became popular in Europe, were he performed concerts for large fees
my blue heaven
-performer, Austin, was one of the first cooners (singers who mastered the intimate style of singing made possible with the electric microphone -verse-refrain -lyrics reinforce a familiar and comfortable motif of the american dream (home and family)
jewish immigrants
-played a central role in the music business during the early 20th century as composers, lyricists, performers, publishers and promoters
What are tin pan alley songs about?
-predominately aimed at white, urban middle and upper middle class americans -said little in the way of social or political commentary -were generally escapist -privacy and romance
Richard Rodgers
-produced many of the finest songs of the period
tiger rag
-three wind instruments: cornet, clarinet and trombone -consists of a series of musical phrases of regular length, presented one after the other -contains no strongly identified melody
business bands
-touring bands not connected to government institutions were an important part of the American music business -Italian concert bands -national phenomenon and a powerful shaper of musical taste during late 19th century -contributed to later developments in popular music and jazz
dance music
-until the late 19th century, European American dance was closely modeled on styles imported from England and the continent -country dances were popular -in US, country dance developed into a plethora of urban and rural, elite and lower-class, black and white variants
racism in the jazz age
-world of dance orchestras remained strictly segregated -most successful black dance bands of the 1920s were able to extend their appeal across racial boundaries -white jazz fans began to frequent nightclubs in african american neighborhoods -Duke Ellington developed a style that he called "jungle music" featuring dense textures and dark, growling timbres -most successful dance bands of 1920s/30s were led and staffed by white musicians
sheet music
from the 19th century until the 1920s, it was the principal means of disseminating popular songs
