Music 140 Test 1

tin pan

Popular Music

• Demographic character music

• The audience was white, middle class urban and northern

• First hit song of the genre was After the Ball

• Sheet music is most prevalent, recording does not start till 1920’s

After the Ball 1892

• Charles K Harris

• First hit song of popular music genre

• Sold 5M copies of sheet music, ppl would play it at home

• This song cause the music industry to get organized

• In 1892, enough people were concentrated into cities, this makes it possible for a hit song

Tin Pan Alley

• Primary centre of music industry

• reason for name: all singers would come out in the alley to play music in NYC because it was too hot to stay inside, creating overlapping music

• 1920-1930’s there were 21000 music publishers and 36000 composers

• Does business through division of labour

  • Everyone in TPA has one singular job, songwriters only write music, singers only sing

  • Professional songwriters come from TPA:

    • Diane Warren, Max Martin, Urban Berlin

  • It is not a singular building or company, it is like Silicon Valley, collection of thousands of people who adopted the division of labour system

• Focused on sheet music, recording didn’t start till 1920s

Song Credits TPA

• Will always have two names: composer and writer

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TPA Musical Style

• Songs tend to focus on idealized romance

  • Regarding beginning or end of a relationship

• Easy to play and sing

  • limited range, short phrasing

  • Needed amateurs in homes to be able to play them

• Melody; AABA becomes prevalent

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Melody

• The part you hum

• It is AABA

• A - melody, A - repeat, B - when the melody changes and becomes different creates tension, A - comes back to finish song and give resolution

• Ex. Believe Me, If all those endearing young charms, Thomas Moore

Ex. Believe Me, If all those endearing young charms, Thomas Moore

• Song drops a century before TPA

• Musical Style: AABA

• TPA adopts this AABA

What are the categories of music

• Popular

• Race

• Hillbilly

Example: Sentimental Journey (Brown/Homer/Green 1944)

• Performed by Les Brown and His Band of Renown ft. Doris Day

• Specific Category: Big Band

• Doris Day has a very clear and smooth sound from chest cavity

North American Popular Music 1945

• Marks the end of the Big Band Era

• Big Bands had dominated the music industry since the mid 1930’s

• Sentimental journey, sounds carry value, voices are smooth, restrained and not rough

Example: Good Rockin’ Tonight (Roy Brown, 1947)

• Performed by Wynonie Harris (Recorded 1948)

• General Category: Race music (intended audience is black)

• Specific Category: Jump Blues

Big Band Music

• Dominated music industry from mid 1930s till 1945

  • Never faded away, just became less popular

• All about the feel

• Swing: a type of rhythm 1-3 beats

• Music for a purpose of dancing

• 3 sections

• Vocalists are used to change the temper of the song

• Instruments are the focus

• Starts are band leaders

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Development of American Music Industry

• What creates conditions for popular music to become a consumer product

• Copyright law and intellectual property

• 1790s to 1830s, there are amendments to the copyright law to cover sheet music

• In the early 1800s, more people are writing songs

The Victorian Ballad

• Need a market for people to buy the songs

• ‘ballad’ refers to telling a story

• Victorian depicts the era of Queen Victoria

• Reputation was important, so people (esp young women) needed to behave properly

• Parlour songs played into this

  • Control and resistance which the middle class valued most

• Rise of the middle class, the industrial revolution so people are moving into the city

• Luxury items like Piano’s were a symbol of wealth that were becoming prominent with the rise of the middle class, cause people had extra to spend

• Daughter’s would pursue ‘leisure’ activities like parlour songs, symbol of wealth

Example: Somewhere over the rainbow (Arlen/Harburg) 1939

• Judy Garland sang at 15

• Arlen composer

• Harburg lyricist

• Uses AABA

  • A - density of words is low

  • B - vocal density goes up 4x, song is faster, creates excitement

• TPA song

• Category of popular music is defined by audience

  • White, urban, middle class

Slave Trade

• Lasted for 250 years

• Central elements of West African American Culture

• Work songs come to America through slave trade

• Music is omni-present to AA, not like how europeans see it as entertainment, separate from work

Work Songs

• Derived from West Africa

• AA associate music with work, unlike europeans who associate it with entertainment

• Work songs are improvised, like a game to make working conditions less awful

• Song leader: would take the fragment of a song and sing it, then the rest of the group would jump in as fast as they can when they figure out which song it is

• Then it repeats, will the song leader sing the same line again, or jump ahead

Example: Old Alabama 1947

• Recording tech begins in 1877

• Chain gang is singing while cutting a tree trunk

• Example of a work song

• Genre: Folk Music

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Folk Music

• Folk music is separate from pop music because of the intent of the performers

• Folk music is performed by amateurs

  • Amateur = Amour - doing it for the love of music

• Concerned with tradition, not quality

Self Consciousness

• How a musician distinguishes themselves from another

• Competition

African Retentions

• Most people in the slave trade came from west africa

• Interest in percussive and distorted timbres

• Riffs

• Call and response

1. Timbres 2. Percussive 3. Percussive Timbres 4. Distorted Timbres

• The quality of different sounds

• The sound is created by striking the instrument (piano, drum)

• Unique sound produced when an instrument is struck

• Positive cultural element in West African culture (lots of edge & intensity), negative in European culture

Riffs

• A short, self contained musical gesture that is repeated, becoming the basis for a longer composition

• Ex: Whole Lotta Love by Led Zeppelin

  • British group Influenced by West African Culture

• Riff repeats, and the stuff goes over top of it

• Now they are called beats

• Riff and Motif are different

Call and Response

• Energy flowing both ways during performance from stage to audience

• One Way Flow:

  • Classical Music, Symphonies

  • Music is played to the audience, they just clap at the end

• Two Way Flow:

  • In West Africa, call and response is common that is how it came to America

  • Energy flows back and forth

  • You go to a concert, Drake says ‘oh’, audience repeats

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The Blues

• Appear in 1890s

• However, recordings only began in 1920s

• 30 years of blues were lost because white men did not think they were interesting enough to record

• Generally sole, male musicians with an acoustic guitar

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Post-Slavery

• Institutionalized Racism

• Acceleration to Rural to Urban Shift

  • Lots of AA’s moved to cities, which resulted in new emerging cultures

• Ragtime and Jazz appear in the late 1800s

Example: Ragtime Scott Joplin

• Urban areas have Jazz