Music exam 1

A form of 19th-century American entertainment featuring skits, music, and dance, often performed in blackface.

Minstrel Show

Early sound recording and playback technology that revolutionized music consumption.

Phonograph/Records

A syncopated, piano-based musical style popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, exemplified by Scott Joplin.

Ragtime

A New York-based music publishing industry (late 19th–early 20th century) that produced popular songs and sheet music.

Tin Pan Alley

A genre originating from African American communities in the early 20th century, characterized by improvisation, swing rhythms, and blues influences.

Jazz

A term from the early 20th century referring to music recorded by and marketed to Black audiences, including blues, jazz, and gospel.

Race Music/Records

Early country music from the rural South, often featuring folk influences and simple instrumentation.

Hillbilly Music

A style often performed by female singers with a jazz-influenced backing band.

Classic Blues

A rawer, acoustic style associated with rural male performers.

Country Blues

A jazz subgenre from the 1930s-40s featuring a strong rhythm and big band instrumentation.

Swing Music

Orchestral jazz ensembles with brass, woodwind, and rhythm sections, popular in the swing era.

Big Band Music

A Cuban dance music style blending Afro-Cuban rhythms and jazz influences, popularized in the U.S. in the 1940s-50s.

Mambo

A term for African American popular music evolving from blues and jazz in the 1940s, eventually leading to rock and soul.

Rhythm & Blues (R&B)

A broad genre of American music blending folk, blues, and cowboy traditions, evolving into modern country music.

Country and Western

Became a major way to transmit music, especially in the 1920s-50s.

Radio

The primary method before recording technology, including vaudeville and revues.

Live Performances

Before recordings, songs were distributed in written form for home performance.

Sheet Music

Helped popularize new styles of music (e.g., rock & roll on TV in the 1950s).

Television & Film

A song structure where the same melody is repeated with different lyrics.

Strophic Music

A common song structure where verses tell a story and the chorus is repeated.

Verse/Chorus Form

A soft, intimate singing style popularized by male singers, made possible by microphones.

Crooning

A theatrical show with musical numbers, sketches, and dance, but without a continuous plot.

Revue

A musical with a strong narrative structure, where songs are integrated into the storyline.

Book Musical

The illegal practice of record companies paying DJs to play specific songs on the radio.

Payola

A new performance of a previously recorded song, sometimes used to market Black artists' songs to white audiences.

Cover Version

The promotion of songs by publishers to get radio play or performances by artists.

Plugging

Jazz or swing band arrangements played from memory or basic outlines rather than written scores.

Head Charts

A jazz singing technique using improvised, wordless syllables.

Scatting