The Twentieth Century and After Vernacular Music

Modern times

• Electrification of homes

• first airplanes

• automobiles

• RECORDING DEVICES: MUSICE BECAME PERMANENT

Recorded Sound
Thomas Edison

• playable sound recording in 1877

• tinfoil cylinder phonograph

• Office dictation
  machine.

Recorded Sound
Emile Berliner

invented a more practical
system that recorded on a flat disc.

vernacular music traditions

popular songs

dance numbers

Broadway shows

film scores

band pieces

piano rags

jazz

Tin Pan Alley

• New York-based music
  publishing industry

• name refers to both the genre and the street where the
  industry is based on 28th Street between Fifth Avenue and Broadway, New York City.
  

Musical Comedy or Musical

It featured songs and dance numbers in styles

drawn from popular music in the context of a

spoken play with a comic or romantic plot.

Music for Silent Films

• were always accompanied by music.

• manipulated the audience's emotional response to
  the visual drama.

• Operas influenced film music because of their established convention for enhancing drama through musical accompaniment
  

Band Music

• Military and amateur wind bands in Europe and North America

• first decades of the century saw an emergence of serious pieces that became the classical repertoire for band.

African American Traditions

Brass bands were one of the training grounds for African American

musicians, along with Black churches and dance orchestras. They differ from the

white bands in their swinging, syncopated style

RAGTIME

A style that features syncopated (or “ragged”) rhythm against a regular,

marchlike bass that is played both by brass and concert bands for dances.

It originally refers to the manner of improvising or performing, “ragging” pieces

noted in even rhythms by introducing syncopations.

Scott Joplin

A leading ragtime composer, son of a former
slave, is best known for his piano rags. Most
rags are in 2/4 meter with a series of sixteen-
measure strains, each repeated.

WROTE MAPLE LEAF RAG

EARLY JAZZ

began with a mixture of ragtime and blues elements. Jazz was born in New Orleans, a vibrant port city of French, Spanish, African, and Caribbean cultural influences.

improvise the arrangements, unlike ragtime, which was played from a notated piece. This allows a single piece of music to sound completely different depending on who is performing it

JELLY ROLL MORTON

MAPLE LEAF RAG

Vernacular world that became
permanent, foundational pillars of music history:

Band Music, Music Comedy
(Musicals), Ragtime and Jazz.