American Popular Music: Chapter 1 – Themes and Streams of American Popular Music (Notes)

Listening Critically

  • Listening Critically: Listening that consciously seeks out meaning in music by drawing on knowledge of how music is put together, its cultural significance, and its historical development.

  • Includes knowing when things sound “wrong” even without technical language to describe it.

  • The idea that most people don’t listen carefully to the music they hear on a daily basis.

Formal Analysis

  • Formal analysis: listening for musical structure, its basic building blocks, and the ways in which these blocks are combined.

  • Musical process: analysis of how popular music actually sounds, including the interpretation by performers.

  • Structure is not the only important dimension; other dimensions matter.

  • Concepts directly relevant to popular music:

    • Riff: a repeated pattern designed to generate rhythmic momentum.

    • Hook: a memorable musical phrase or riff.

    • Groove: evokes the channeled flow of “swinging,” “funky,” or “phat” rhythms.

Timbre

  • Timbre: quality of a sound, sometimes called tone color.

  • Listeners can identify the singer by the “grain” of his or her voice.

  • Instrumental performers have memorable soundprints.

  • Recording engineers, producers, arrangers, and record labels develop unique soundprints.

Lyrics and Dialect

  • Lyrics: the words of a song.

  • Dialect: musical genres strongly associated with particular dialects.

Music and Identity

  • Music as a means of expressing identity:

    • Adolescence: a source of comfort and continuity.

    • Images of gender identity and culturally specific ways of being masculine and feminine.

    • Ethnicity and race: close connections between Black Lives Matter and new music of protest relevant to contemporary concerns.

  • Music plays an important role in bringing narratives to life.

  • Popular music is closely tied to stereotypes.

Music and Technology

  • Technology shaped popular music.

  • Mass media created a gap between musicians and their audiences.

  • Dated technologies associated with collectors and subcultures.

  • Technologies that encourage active involvement:

    • Advent of digital audio workstations (DAWs).

  • Evolving relationship between human musicality and technology.

The Music Business (1 of 3)

  • The production of popular music involves the work of many individuals performing different roles.

  • Rise of radio, recording, and movies as primary means for popularizing music.

The Music Business (2 of 3)

  • Mainstream pop music roles:

    • Composer and Lyricist: first creators of a work.

    • Arranger: reworks songs to complement a performer’s strengths.

    • A&R (artists and repertoire): sought out talent.

    • Producer: convinces board of directors to back a project, shapes development of new talent, intervenes in the recording process.

    • Engineers.

    • Publicity department and Public relations.

    • Other participants: business agents, video producers, graphic artists, copy editors, stagehands, truck drivers, merchandise companies, and producers of musical hardware.

The Music Business (3 of 3)

  • The nature of the music business is unpredictable.

  • Early 21st century changes: Internet-based digital technologies.

    • Apple’s iTunes Store founded in 2001.

    • This shifted business models for record companies, producers, studios, recording engineers, and musicians.

    • Increase of home studios.

    • Artist-owned labels and publishing companies.

    • By 2012, three transnational corporations controlled at least 80% of the world’s legal trade in commercially recorded music:

    • Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group.

Centers and Peripheries

  • Center: geographical hubs such as New York, Los Angeles, and Nashville.

  • Periphery: smaller institutions and those historically excluded from the political and economic mainstream.

Streams of Tradition: The Sources of Popular Music

  • This section introduces the major streams/sources of American popular music.

The European American Stream (1 of 3)

  • Cultural and linguistic dominance of English established the “mainstream.”

  • Ballads: songs that tell a story through a series of verses using a repeating melody.

  • Verses: sequences telling a story alternating with a chorus.

  • Strophic form: musical form with verses and chorus.

  • Broadsides: large sheets of paper that were ancestors of sheet music.

  • Chorus: a repeated melody with fixed text inserted between verses.

The European American Stream (2 of 3)

  • English ballad opera tradition.

  • Ballad tradition in America: songs reworked to fit life circumstances of new immigrants.

  • Core of the tradition: musical forms and storytelling techniques carried into contemporary country and western music.

The European American Stream (3 of 3)

  • Dance music closely modeled on styles imported from England and the Continent.

  • Folk music: traditions of immigrant Europe contributing to folk and popular styles.

  • Religious music traditions:

    • Spirituals: sacred songs from breakaway movements.

    • Call-and-response singing: preacher “lining out” or singing each line and the congregation repeating.

    • Gospel music: large body of sacred songs reflecting personal religious experience of Protestant evangelical groups.

    • Cantillation: chanting of scripture in sacred Jewish tradition.

Listening Guide: Old-Time Music (1 of 5)

  • Old-time music: category comprising string band music, ballad songs, sacred songs, and church hymns; includes lullabies and work songs.

  • British ballad tradition: one of the main roots of American music; precursor to urban folk, country, and rock ’n’ roll.

Listening Guide: Old-Time Music (2 of 5)

  • “Barbara Allen” documented in 1666 in London.

  • Included in Francis J. Child’s English and Scottish Popular Ballads (1882–1898).

  • Difficult to know when it arrived in English colonies in North America.

  • Included in some of the earliest recordings of rural American folk music.

  • Jean Ritchie (b. 1922–2015): folk singer/collector; her version of “Barbary Allen” learned growing up in Kentucky.

Listening Guide: Old-Time Music (3 of 5)

  • String band tradition: repertoire of old-time string bands shows the impact of new environments on traditions brought by English, Scots, Irish, and Welsh immigrants.

  • Banjo as a hallmark instrument.

  • “Soldier’s Joy”: one of the most popular and widely distributed fiddle tunes in old-time repertoire.

Listening Guide: Old-Time Music (4 of 5)

  • Skillet Lickers: one of the first southern string bands to appear on commercial recordings.

  • James Gideon (Gid) Tanner (1885–1960): band leader, chicken farmer, part-time fiddler.

  • Formation with George Riley Puckett, Clayton McMichen, Fate Morris: early successful “hillbilly” act for Columbia Records.

  • Recording of “Soldier’s Joy” (1929).

Listening Guide: Old-Time Music (5 of 5)

  • Tommy Jarrell (1901–1985): influential old-time fiddler/banjo player from Mt. Airy, NC.

  • Documentary film: Sprout Wings and Fly (1983).

  • Drone: a repeated pitch running through performance, similar to Scottish bagpipe techniques.

The African American Stream (1 of 4)

  • Transatlantic slave traffic: by 1860, almost 4 imes 10^6 slaves in the US out of a total population of 3.1 imes 10^7.

  • Genesis of African American music requires engagement with slavery and the culture forged from it.

  • Cultural mix among slaves: syncretic/creolized forms drawn from various African, European, and Native American precepts.

  • Deep South: slaves confined to segregated quarters and worked long hours.

  • Appalachian/Ozark mountains: slaves lived in family units adjacent to owners’ homes; interactions across racial lines more nuanced here.

The African American Stream (2 of 4)

  • Genres representing Deep South, Appalachia, and New Orleans:

    • Mississippi Delta-based electric blues (Muddy Waters).

    • Black banjo music of Kentucky and the Carolinas.

    • New Orleans jazz.

  • 19th century music of African American communities: work songs, lullabies, game songs, story songs, instrumental music for dances and events.

  • Black spirituals.

The African American Stream (3 of 4)

  • Call-and-response: lead singer or instrumentalist with a group alternating phrases; more freedom for the leader.

  • Relatively short phrases recurring in a regular cycle.

  • Polyrhythmic textures: many rhythms occurring simultaneously.

  • Syncopation: off-beat patterns played very precisely against the underlying pulse.

  • Backbeat: accenting the 2nd and 4th beats of a steady four-beat pulse.

The African American Stream (4 of 4)

  • Wide palette of tone colors.

  • Emphasis on improvisation.

  • Instrumentation: influenced by African drumming traditions.

  • Diddly bow: adaptation of a one-stringed zither.

  • Influence of African American aesthetics and techniques on American popular music.

Listening Guide: Long John

  • Performed by Lightning Washington and fellow convicts, recorded 1934.

  • African American work songs: performances coordinated work efforts, increasing efficiency and safety.

  • Lighting Washington: prison song leader.

  • Recording occurred at Darrington State Prison Farm in Sandy Point, TX.

  • Structure: leader-and-chorus, call-and-response song.

Listening Guide: “Coo Coo”

  • Banjo: instrument most cited as evidence of continuity with West African traditions in the United States.

  • Dink Roberts (1894–1984): “songster”—tradition of African American secular music-making predating the blues.

  • Recorded “Coo Coo” at age 80.

Listening Guide: “Stagolee” ("Stack O’Lee")

  • Performed by Mississippi John Hurt (vocal and guitar), recorded 1965.

  • Variant of the ballad tradition.

  • Theme: sharecroppers.

  • Stagolee: archetype of the bad man character; many versions exist.

  • Mississippi John Hurt (1892–1966): representative of the songster tradition.

  • Polyrhythmic texture in fingerpicking guitar; conversation between voice and guitar; blend of European American and African American elements.

The Latin American Stream (1 of 2)

  • Latin America: vast region colonized by Spain, Portugal, and France.

  • Cuban contradanza: African-influenced variant of French country dance; fashionable in Europe under the name habanera; influence extended to US popular music in late 19th century.

  • Tango: influenced by habanera rhythm, Afro-influenced milonga, Italian/Spanish songs, and gaucho songs; popularized by Rudolph Valentino in film The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921).

The Latin American Stream (2 of 2)

  • Rumba: developed when rural son (Cuban parallel of country music) spread to Havana and was played by professional dance bands.

  • Brazilian samba: boosted in the 1940s by Carmen Miranda’s film career.

  • Mexican music: Conjunto acordeon, Rancheras, Corrido, Banda.

Listening Guide: The Tango (1 of 2)

  • “La Cumparsita,” performed by Carlos Gardel with guitar accompaniment by José Ricardo, recorded 1928; also performed by Francisco Canaro y Quinteto Pirincho (recording 1951).

  • Best-known composition from the tango tradition.

  • Composed in 1916 by Uruguayan musician Gerardo Matos Rodriguez (1897–1948).

  • Carlos Gardel (1890–1935): French-born star of tango.

  • José “El Negro” Ricardo (1888–1937): Afro-Argentine musician in tango tradition.

Listening Guide: The Tango (2 of 2)

  • Francisco Canaro (1888–1964): Uruguay-born violinist and bandleader.

  • Traditional dance band (orquesta típica): two violins, piano, double bass, drum set, bandoneón.

  • Bandoneón: reedy-sounding cousin of the concertina and accordion.

Listening Guide: Afro-Cuban Rumba

  • “Enigue Nigue,” performed by AfroCuba de Matanzas, released 1998.

  • Rumba: originally referred to a family of Afro-Cuban dances, with African-derived percussion-driven music for performances at informal parties.

  • Instruments: three single-headed drums (conga drums) - tumbadores and quinto; palitos, claves.

  • Rumba vocal parts: solo singing and call-and-response patterns.

  • Montuno section: alternates fixed vocal refrain with solo vocal improvisation.

Listening Guide: Mexican Mariachi Music

  • “La Negra,” performed by Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán, released 1959.

  • Mariachi tradition originated in western Mexico, associated with the state of Jalisco and the city of Guadalajara.

  • Possible origin from the French word for marriage, a social event at which mariachi bands play.

  • Small bands comprised of violin, guitar, and other strings; expanded in size and added trumpets.

  • “Son de la Negra” traced back to the 19th century and appeared in printed form in 1940.

Key Terms

  • A&R (artists and repertoire)

  • A Cappella

  • Arranger

  • Backbeat

  • Ballad

  • “Barbara Allen”

  • Black spirituals

  • British ballad tradition

  • Broadsides

  • Call-and-response

  • Cantillation

  • Chorus

  • Composer

  • Dance music

  • Dialect

  • Folk music

  • Formal analysis

  • Gospel music

  • Groove

  • Hook

  • Lyricist

  • Lyrics

  • Montuno

  • Musical process

  • Old-time music

  • Polyrhythmic

  • Producer

  • Rhythm

  • Riff

  • Sharecroppers

  • “Soldier’s Joy”

  • Spirituals

  • String band tradition

  • Strophic

  • Timbre

  • Tune families

  • Verses

Key People

  • Carlos Gardel

  • Dink Roberts

  • Francisco Canaro

  • James Gideon (Gid) Tanner

  • Jean Ritchie

  • José ("El Negro") Ricardo

  • Lightning Washington

  • Mississippi John Hurt

  • Skillet Lickers

  • Tommy Jarrell