Transcript Some Notes from Chapters 1 & 2

Categories of folk, art, and “pop” music
 Division into categories based on
“ethnocentric value judgments”
 labels exist but have no theoretical basis
 The labels, however, particularly folk, art,
and pop, do in fact identify (at least as
ideal types) fairly discrete musical
function and content.
 Cultural economic and transmission
support systems as primary determinants
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Folk Music
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meets the approval of the group; tied to social occasions
transmission indirect or even incidental; oral transmission
text is emphasized.
no “professional” musicians.
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non-subsistence income to support specialist musicians
direct patronage by individuals or institutions
extended, formal performances, individual's creative output
training
self- and class-selected listening
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indirect patronage by a mass audience
technology as a means of transmission; owner/providers mediate flow
economic
musicians are specialists or professionals
Art music
Popular Music
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Main tenets (contradictions?)
• art yet also people’s music
• indigenous American music yet global
• ethnically unifying yet African American
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Distinction between “race” and “ethnicity”
• jazz musicians may be black or white or any other
ethnicity.
• African American: not a race but an ethnic group
• ethnic features can be learned and shared
• African American musical principles include
polyrhythm, call and response, blue notes, and
timbre variation: the principles are not unique but
their combination is
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Serve to establish a persistent musical identity
Helped create the hybrid nature of American culture
Various Genres
Ballads: local history through long songs; often
include braggadocio
Work songs: accompanied manual labor
• Berta Berta
• Work Song (Cannonball Adderley)
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Field hollers: unaccompanied, rhythmically loose,
accompany farm labor
Spirituals: call and response with religious poetry. Two
kinds: polished Fisk Jubilee Singers style; orally
transmitted Pentecostal church singing. By 1920s,
gospel music had developed. Spirituals are highly
interactional, which influenced jazz musicians.
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Country blues
• Solitary singer (male), guitar
accompaniment
• Loose and improvisatory form
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City (Vaudeville, Classic, Urban) blues
• Style originally “acquired” by female singers
• Female singer, accompanied by
piano/organ, multiple inst.
• Stricter adherence to form
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a uniquely American entertainment led to parodies
of European operatic and theatrical songs
In the 1830s, minstrel musical acts appeared as
interludes between circus acts or theatrical
performances
(1843) first full-scale minstrel show played in New York;
"Virginia Minstrels“ applied black cork to their faces,
performed song-and-dance/variety show
Blackface
• typically burned, pulverized champagne corks mixed with
water or petroleum jelly
• racial marker
• type of mask to shield the performers from identification
with the their roles
• "Jim Crow" - A construct of Thomas Dartmouth
"Daddy" Rice, "Jim Crow" was presumably
inspired by an elderly African American who
Rice had seen dancing and singing the words:
"Weel about and turn about and do jus' so, Eb'ry
time I weel about, I jump Jim Crow." The name
later refered to the racial caste system that
existed from 1877 to the mid 1960s.
• "Zip Coon" - Created by George Washington
Dixon, "Zip Coon" supposedly represented the
"dandy," "sporting life" Northern character who
had acquired some wealth through legitimate or
illegitimate means.
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Performance Practice vs. written notation
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o Pitch variance (intonation).
o “rough and varied timbres.”
o “ragging”
"African" contributions include:
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Known & unknown variations in “established” music
Syncopated rhythm.
Social significance. Ragtime possibly descended from the “cakewalk,” a
“walkaround” in which couples would parade around a square and
improvise high-stepping, vigorous movements as they turned the corner.
The cakewalk can be seen as a white imitation of black slaves parodying
European dances.
European music contributions.
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Form, probably derived from the march.
Solo piano.
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Alternating root/chord in the left hand.
Solo piano.
Fully notated.
Other characteristics: