Transcript Unit1_Talking About Popular Musicx

POPULAR MUSIC IN
AMERICA
Dr. Love, professor
AUGUST 28, 2015:
SYLLABUS/GREET – UNIT 1: TALKING ABOUT POPULAR MUSIC
SYLLABUS
• (Show in Learning Web)
INTRO
• What is popular music?
• Pupular Music is Familiar and Widely Heard
• Popular Music is Profitable
• genre – stylistic category
• Ex. – The Beggar’s Opera
• Popular Music is a Different Sound from Classical or Folk
• popular music – music that appeals to a mass audience, is intended to have
wide appeal, and has a sound and a style distinct from classical or folk.
• Popular Music is Positioned in the Center
• (between folk on one side and classical music on the other)
• Folk is usually rural and cut off from “mainstream”
• Classical music is associated with the upper class
• Popular Music Arises from Synthesis
• mainstream – the prevailing popular style
• Classical influence can be seen in virtuosity
• Folk/ethinc-popular fusions broaden the audience.
• Central Fact: popular music owes its identity and its evolution to a
process of creative and open-minded synthesis.
UNIT 1: CHAPTER 1 – TALKING ABOUT
POPULAR MUSIC
• Hypothetical phone call (on overhead)
• The Elements of Music
Timbre – tone color of a musical sound.
Pitch – describes how high or low a musical tone sounds.
Intensity – how loud a sound is – “loud” or “soft” will suffice.
Duration – the length of a musical sound. (two beats, three
beats, etc.)
• Instrumentation – voices and instruments heard in
performance.
• Performance Style – the way musicians sing and play their
instruments.
• Inflection – something on a smaller scale, like the gradations of
loudness from syllable to syllable in a vocal line.
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LISTEN TO MAYBELLENE
• What are some things we heard?
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How does Berry begin?
What is the timbre of Berry’s guitar? Clean? Distorted?
What is the tempo – fast? Slow?
Any other comments?
• "Maybellene" Chuck Berry
CHAPTER 2
• Sources of Instrumental Sounds in Popular Music
• 1. Instruments inherited from popular music’s antecedents and
contributing styles
• Nineteenth-century popular music utilized similar instruments to classical
music.
• 2. New ways of playing the inherited instruments
• African American musicians created new sounds on these instruments –
moans, new mutes, bends, and other inflections.
• 3. Creation of new instruments specifically for use in popular music.
• A number of instruments were invented for this purpose: electric bass, drum
set, electronic keyboards, etc.
• 4. Use of electronic technology for sound modification.
• Distortion, signal processing, etc. Hendrix - Star Spangled Banner
• 5. Use of “found” instruments
• Most examples of these are percussion instruments that now exist in a more
refined, commercial from after becoming well established. (cowbell, steel
drums, turntables, etc…
EXAMPLES IN “MAYBELLENE?”
• Can we think of these examples in “Maybellene?”
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Piano and string bass come from European music
Bassist playing pizzicato
Drum set
Berry has amplification
Maracas evolved from a percussion instrument created by
filling a hollow gourd with seeds.
RHYTHM SECTION
• Rhythm section – a heterogeneous group of instruments
that includes at least one chord instrument, one bass
instrument, and one percussion instrument.
• Early groups used tuba, drum line, banjo, and piano.
"Sweet Little Papa" (1926) - Louis Armstrong's Hot Five
• In the 1930s, the bass replaced the tuba and the
acoustic guitar replaced the banjo.
• Around mid century, the rhythm section started to move
from the background to prominence.
• Amplification helped bring it forward:
• Electric guitar came into prominence after WWII
• Electric bass replaced string bass in a number of places by the 60s.
• Rhythm section beces the nucleus of the band.
PERFORMANCE STYLE
• Performance Style – the way musicians sing and play their
instruments.
• 1960 –
• Elvis Presely – “White man with the ‘negro feel”
• Ray Charles – merging blues and gospel to pop/country.
• Marty Robbins – popular country singer (mainstreaming of
Nashville in the 50s)
• Chubby Checker – wrote“The Twist”
• The Drifters – one of the classic black vocal groups of the
50s
• Kingston Trio – folk revival, pleasant-voiced
CHAPTER 3 –
RHYTHM IN POPULAR MUSIC
• Beat – consider these three examples:
• The tempo of “Maybellene” is about 140beats per minute
(bpm).
• “Maybellene” shifts between a two-beat and a four-beat
rhythm.
• “Maybellene” has a great beat; it makes you want to
dance to the music or drive faster.
CHAPTER 3 – CONT.
• “Timekeeping” Beat –
• Tempo refers to the “speed” of the beat.
• “Maybellene” is on the quick side @140bpm.
• Popular music is usually “danceable” between 110 and 140
• Marches/disco songs are mid-range, around 120bpm
• Punk is usually frenetic/fast at 160+ to go along with its
confrontational nature.
• Languid/slow tempos of doo-wop (60-70) contribute to the
romantic nature.
• Beat and Measure
• A measure is a grouping of beats into a consistent pattern.
Most popular music is grouped in 4-beat measures, but there
are some examples of 2,3, or even 5 beats.
• "Take Five" - Dave Brubeck Quartet (1959)
CHAPTER 3 – CONT.
• “Style” Beats –
• Two beat rhythm – features two bass notes per
measure alternative with chords on the backbeat.
• Backbeat is a percussive sound on the second of a
pair of beats (or the second half of a beat)
• Four-beat rhythm – steady timekeeping with four
notes per measure.
• Style beats – we call them this because they “are
the most pervasive feature of the dominant (or codominant) style of the music of a particular era.
CHAPTER 3 – CONT.
• “Good” Beat
• Syncopation – an accent that doesn’t line up with the beat
• Accent – a note, chord, or non-pitched sound that is
emphasized in some way, so that it stands out.
CHAPTER 4
MELODY AND HARMONY,
TEXTURE AND FORM
• Riffs – short, easily remembered, and often
syncopated melodic ideas.
• Harmony – the study of chords (what they are, how
they are formed, how long they last, and how they
progress from one to another)
• 4-part harmony – soprano is usually the melody, and the
chords formed by the other parts is the harmony.
• Arpeggio – descrbes a chord in which the pitches are
presented in succession. (Sol – me – do)
• Chord progression – a consistently used sequence of
chords.
• Texture – discuss “Maybellene”
CHAPTER 4 – CONT.
• Form – the organization of sections in a musical
performance/piece.
• Verse/Chorus – most popular music
• Chorus (or refrain) – is the portion of the song that returns in nearly the
same form every time.
• Verse – the same (or very similar) melody often sets different lyrics
• Blues form
• Twelve-bar blues form – most characteristic version of the blues.
• Other forms of the blues exist: "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the
Ground" (1927)
• Switch to document camera to see blues/song forms
CHAPTER 5 –
A MATTER OF STYLE
• Musical Style – a set of characteristic musical features that
typifies a body of music.
• Rock songs…usually have a rock beat
• Heavy metal…usually lots of distortion
• Some characteristics of one style may occur in several styles,
and others may be in a relatively small range of music.
• “Maybellene” – style?
• Backbeat was popular starting in the 20s
• Two-beat rhythm was widely used in song and dance in the 20s, then it
was used in country after WWII (1945). By the time Berry wrote this
song, it was outdated.
• He blended the two together to form something that was neither Rock
and Roll (which would come later) nor full-blown country/blues.
CHAPTER 5 – CONT.
• Labels only take you so far in describing music,
especially innovative music.
• Style and meaning –
• Words and music (the style of the music) can sometimes
work together in tandem to help accentuate or reinforce
meaning. (example – “Maybellene” = 1950s)
FOR NEXT TIME (SEP. 4)
• REVIEW the syllabus!
• READ:
• Unit 2: The Beginnings of American Popular Music, pp. 18-35
• Unit 3: The Emergence of Black Music, pp. 38-53
Total pages: 35
35/7=5 pages a day!
Pay attention to the bold words!