Midterm 1 Flashcards
How does sound construct subjectivities?
- Technology plays a role
- Mobile devices enable us to control what we hear, creating “personal soundworlds”
- Mood Subjectivity: Songza asks you what mood your in to match music to
- Listening is different than hearing, it is intentional, conscious and active: we may hear noise but we listen to music
- The tether between listening choices and constructing a sense of self establishes boundaries of belonging, community, inclusion and exclusion
3 Components of Acoustic Space
- ) Resonance (Amplification of the Environment)
- ) Simultaneity (many events in same zone of space-time)
- ) Atmosphere (sound carries mood and effect)
Popular Music has…
- Has currency beyond a local audience
- Gains new audiences, meanings, contexts
- Shapes our identity
The goal of writing about Pop Music
Not only to capture ‘the real’ or ‘the authentic’ experience but also to widen the thinking spaces of research into the imaginary, the possible and the potential of sound and identity
Paul Morley: Podcast
- Previously, only popular music was critiqued because it was prevalent
- Now anyone can review music, it is not as sophisticated as it used to be
- Much more critiquing and reviewing in music now
Main Sonic Elements of Music
Rhythm, Hooks, Riffs, Voice, Harmony, Melody
What is Vaudeville?
Variety shows which often centered around music (NYC)
The Piano was a …
Status symbol
Broadway and Vaudeville relied on …
Tin Pan Alley Songwriters
_ were at the centre of the music business, turning the creations of songwriters and lyricists into commercial properties (Music used to be very detached from business and commodities, music was a one time only thing, now sheet music began being released)
Music Publishers
An “American” Sound
- Reflected the multiple ethnicities in Tin Pan Alley (Jewish America, Irish America, African America)
- Tin Pan Alley songs came to be accepted far beyond the community in and for which they had been created
- Jazz often misattributed to big orchestras by upper class white people
What was central to the Tin Pan Alley mode of song production?
Collaboration
Irving Berlin’s Songs often included…
- ) Piano introduction
- ) Two- or four- bar vamp (repeated riffing?)
- ) Two (or more) verses (16 or 32 bars)
- ) A chorus
* * Yet this sequence was subject to change in performance
1909: New Copyright Act
Royalty fees from recorded music and, termed “mechanicals” from “mechanical reproduction”
1920: New technologies for music consumers
Records and the Radio
1920s: The Jazz Age
Jazz was popularized as “syncopated dance music” often by high society orchestras
- Born from a variety of musical traditions including ragtime and blues
- “Hot Jazz”
- Oral, improvised
- “Sweet Dance Music”
- Written, played by high society orchestras
Appropriation of Ragtime
an African American piano music which Tin Pan Alley began to work into popular songs
Paul Whiteman
- Dubbed “King of Jazz” due to association between “jazz” and “sweet dance music”
- Blending of symphonic music and jazz
- A lot of African American artists were excluded from radio broadcast
Issue of Cultural Appropriation
The political concern emerges when empowered groups take on or take over the attributes of less powerful communities
- Attention should not be paid to the ownership of the sound, but who profits from the product
- Minorities often have clothing, language, religious beliefs, icons and music taken from a contextually-sensitive location, which are then used in inappropriate and commercial ways
Commodification
- The marketing of music often strips its cultural origin in order to appeal to a larger (and often white) audience
- Imagery and ideas of certain groups, that because of social position and inequalities, cannot make a profit from the sale of their sounds to an audience
Madonna and Vogue – Appropriation?
Voguing originated in the gay community with drag Queens, Madonna uses voguing as a style and to widen her audience - to promote acceptance or commercialize?
Jazz Music
- Music canonized as “Jazz”: small hot combos (i.e: Louis Armstrong) and ragtime-influenced compositions (I.e.: Jelly Roll Morton)
- These 2 kind of define jazz, which differs from the way it was popularized by people like Paul Whitman
- This is distinct from what was seen to be popular at the time: Recall the “Jazz Age” and sweet dance music
Louis Armstrong
- 1901-1971, New Orleans: Jazz Trumpeter and singer, Major influence in jazz, solo performance, very distinct voice, a different kind of jazz
Swing Era:
- Distinction between predominantly white ‘sweet bands’ and ‘predominantly black hot swinging bands’ continues
- The differences between how white jazz musicians are treated, versus that of black musicians
Racial Stereotypes in Jazz
- Black Musicians: body, spontaneity
- White Musicians: mind, calculation, femininity (“even college girls” like white swing bands)
Count Basie
- 1904-1984, New Jersey, Jazz pianist, composer, got his start in Harlem
- Jazz standard
“Hillbilly” and “Race” Music
Categories developed by music industry that catered to rural white Americans and African Americans
- Developed outside of Tin Pan Alley, Recording companies brought this music to the public with help from radio and film, turning them into a commodified piece of popular music
Hillbilly
A term that became widely used to described and market music in the 1930s, beginning in mid-1920s (usually coming from Mountain regions)
Okeh Records
- Location recordings for both hillbilly & race records
- Black artists assigned to 14000 Race Series, White artists to 15000 Hillbilly Series
- ‘Black Records’: a booming field discovered developed and led by Okeh records –> making them more money to go outside the Tin Pan Alley
Race Records
Term comes from Richmond, Virgina-based African Americans buying records of their own, referring to themselves as “The Race”
- includes blues, gospel, piano boogie-woogies, small jazz groups and the funkier swing bands unknown to the white public
Bessie Smith
- “Empress of Blues”
- 1894 (Tennessee) - (1937)
- Colombia Records, popular hit and race record
- African American artists reaching a national audience for first time
From Race –> to Classic Blues
result of diverse musical influences
- Vaudeville, popular theatre
- Traced back to/evolution in shouts, field hollers, work songs, call-and-response style (Da na na na na - from the Office)
Classic Blues contained…
Diverse elements of African-American music, but also emotional appeal of performance
- Entertainment + harsh reality of early blues forms
- Decline in Great Depression/Rise of Swing
Historical Context behind R&B and Country
- Increase in production/military buildup, aided in recovery from Great Depression
- Military training in Southern U.S.
- Improved financial situation for most citizens
- Made possible by cheap guitars in the U.S in late 19th century
Effects of WWII
- -> Pause in Production
- Shellac imported from India – Pacific Blockade
- Vinylite: used for waterproofing war materials not records
- DJ: cheaper alternative to live performances
Jack L. Cooper
- 1888 - 1970
- First African American radio DJ
- One of the first to play records, gospel and jazz
Structure of Blues
> Emphasis on lyrics
12 bar musical cycles, AAB
- Repeating 2 melodic/rhythmic patterns
- With a Resolving third line
- Dominant 7th
Often in 4/4 (1-2-3-4 = 8 1 bar of music)
- Basis of Boogie Woogie, Swing, R&B, Rock and Soul
Three Periods of Blues
- ) 1920s - 1940s (Mississippi)
- ) 1940s - 1950s (Chicago & Memphis)
- ) 1960s - 1970s (Re-release and covers)
First Period of Blues (1920s - 1940s)
- Mississippi Delta, slavery and southern work songs, call-and-response – voice then guitar, lots of myths, myth of Robert Johnson selling his soul to the devil for his talents (Crossroads)
- Prominence of guitar: available and cheap in late 19th century
Second Period of Blues (1940s - 1950s)
- Chicago and Memphis
- “Electrified” blues
- Greater focus on singers and lyrics rather than instrumentalists
- Muddy Watters, B.B. King, T-Bone Walker
- 1949 Billboard uses “Rhythm and Blues” to refer to all black secular popular music (conflating urban blues, Chicago blues, doo-wop, small band jazz and rhythm and blues)
T-Bone Walker
- One of the first blues guitarists to play electric guitar (put the guitar behind his head)
- Influence on B.B. King
- Master showman: “did the splits without missing a beat”
Muddy Waters
- Mississippi
- “Father” of modern Chicago blues
- Electric guitar, amplification
- Aggressive, masculine singing style
- Delta Blues > R ‘n’ R
- Big Influences on R ‘n’ R
Robert Johnson
- Short and poorly documented life (1911-1938)
- Myth of selling soul at crossroads for success (Cross Road Blues)
Third Period of Blues (1960s - 1970s)
- Blues wasn’t popular, Rolling Stones & British Invasion brought blues & pop culture together
- Blues increased in popularity with re-release on CD’s - Robert Johnson in 1990
- Attraction of African American music to white Englishmen
- White rock bands covering blues songs, re-released
- Robert Johnson: “Cross Road Blues” (1936) & Cream “Crossroads” (1966)
- Rolling Stones, Fleetwood Mac and Eric Claption
- Rolling Stones named after a Muddy Waters song
Background of Country Music
Also been termed: mountain music, bluegrass (less well-known country music), cowboy music, country and western and hillbilly music
- “The white mans blues” - Little Richard
- Often simplified with “redneck”
- Australia “bush music” - influenced by Irish traditional music and Indigenous style
Instrumentation of Country
Often features the fiddle, banjo, guitar (especially in early country music of Appalachia)
- Electrified instruments in 1938
Distinct lyrical Content of Country
“transforms marriage, divorce, love, loss and into a narrative of catastrophic tragedy”
- Often focuses on everyday, “simple” situations
- Importance and strength of women
- Many songs also use humour, targets audience with humor and misunderstanding
New Genres of Country
Western Swing and Honky Tonk
Western Swing (Western)
- Mixing of fiddle-led string band dance music and big band swing
- Drums, amplified guitars, horns and pianos (alongside bass and fiddle)
- “New San Antonio Rose”
Honkey-Tonk (Country)
- From rural south
- Named after venues that featured this style (where many stars got their starts)
- Produced a number of stars in 1930s/40s (Ernest Tubb, Cliff Bruner, Ted Daffan)
- Full rhythm section, steel guitar, fiddle
- Nasal vocals, becoming sharper over time
- Focus on working-class life
Hank Williams
Alabama 1923-1953
- Member of Grand Ole Opry
- Struggles with alcoholism, health problems (Had to leave Opry)
- Died of heart failure
Nashville and Country
1953: Country is so popular it is featured in a business magazine
- 1949-1953: Numerous covers of country songs (Many by Hank Williams)
- Country spreads to Europe and Asia
- Development of the Grand Ole Opry and the Nashville country music industry
- Nashville: becomes major phonograph recording centre
The Grand Ole Opry
- Country music stage show in Nashville begins in 1925
- Broadcast on WSM (Saturday night musical tradition)
1939: Airs nationally on NBC Radio
1943: Recorded from Ryman Auditorium
1974: Recorded from Grand Ole Opry House
The Nashville Sound
- 1950s (57/58)
- Record company staff replace elements of honky-tonk with elements of pop music (Background vocals)
- Repeated use of studio musicians (Nashville A-Team, Anita Kerr Quartet)
- -> Patsy Cline “ I Fall to Pieces” (1961)
- Country + Pop charts (BG vox: Jordanaires) –> Take on characteristics of pop music (background vocals) –> Dolly Parton, Johnny Cash, Garth Brooks
- Commercialized country music with smooth vocals and strings
Ray Charles Robinson
1930 - 2004, Georgia
- Multi-talented musician (pianist, singer, saxophonist, arranger)
- Rise of poor, blind country boy from the South to one of the world’s most successful entertainers
- Seattle, 1948: playing in clubs, recording R&B (radio hits in Northern cities)
- 1953-55: Breakthrough, fusion of gospel music (melodies, singing style, harmonic/rhythmic patterns) with secular lyrics and rhythm and blues instrumentation
- Influential on Rock’n’Roll, though he disassociates himself with the genre
Ray Charles Backup Singers
The Raelettes
Guitar Cultures
- Diversity in construction gives the guitar a complex and extensive role in music
- Degree of simplicity or complexity of chord structures and picking styles will determine a style of music
- Guitar has many advantages over other instruments: it has both electric and acoustic versions and can be carried in a range of places
- Hollow body v.s solid body
The Electric Guitar
- Mobility - easy to carry around/cheap
- Difference between “lead” (melody and solos) and rhythm (chord sequences)
- Moved from being a backing instrument in big bands to a lead instrument in Rock music
- Electrification - could be heard above instruments like drums and percussion, bass
- Use amplifiers, then through this passage electronic devices like pedals can change the modulation and tone
Bill Haley and the Comets - Rock Around the Clock
- Moment of transition in terms of genre when guitars were amplified (one of the first rock and roll songs)
- Guitar and brass (sax) lead solo breaks
- Youth anthem, centered around dancing (helped bring RnR to mainstream)
- One of the first rock and roll songs
- Guitar and brass (sax) lead solo breaks – influential moment
Rock ‘n’ Roll
- Reflects the Anglo-American dominance over post-WWII popular music
- “boogie woogie rhythm with emphasis on backbeat”
- The stress on the second beat opened new opportunities for dancing: simplicity, repetitive (one-TWO-three-FOUR)
- Driven by guitars
- Gave a generation a language, rhythm and ideology
Rock ‘n’ Roll in the 1960s
- Transforming the negative and oppressive limitations of youth into a celebration of difference and pleasure
- “Rocking and rolling” pseudonym for both dancing and sex in black culture
Importance of Rock
- Catalogued the development of a generation gap between parents and youth
- 56-76: Rock dominates popular music, creating binary oppositions with Pop (that we should be critical of)
- Rock is still very much commercial and simple it’s not ‘superior’
Chuck Berry
- Rhythm and Blues –> Rock ‘n’ Roll
- Master of creating stories directed at teenagers that described everyday circumstances (cars, dating, high school)
- Guitar: solos, showmanship
Little Richard
- His extroverted and energetic singing, piano playing and song-writing made him one of the biggest stars of the rock ‘n’ roll era
- Performance: Wild dancing, often on top of the piano
- Visual appearance: large pompadour, liberal use of makeup, gaudy clothing - ambiguous sexuality
- Appearance camouflaged threat to heterosexual norms, not a threat to masculinity
Which song is credited with the “sound of the birth of rock ‘n’ roll”?
Tutti Frutti by Little Richard
Elvis Presley
King of Rock’n’Roll
- Subject of controversy stealing culture?
- Why has Elvis stood out from others?: Race, Youth/Age: teen idol
- Connections between rock’n’roll and sex, violence and juvenile delinquency
“snake-dancing around town and smashing windows” “communicable disease” “cannibalistic and tribalistic”
When was Elvis discovered and by who?
1954: At 19, discovered by Sam Phillips of Sun Records (Memphis)
Elvis’s first major recording was…
“That’s All Right” (1954, Sun)
- Originally performed by Arthur Crudup (1946), in 1949 released by him as “That’s all right, Mama”
- Distinctive style of Scotty Moore (lead guitar), Bill Black (bass) and Presley (“crude” rhythm guitar)
- Blended elements of Country & Rhythm and Blues (though not always identified as such)
- Rockabilly: fast style of country mixed with rhythm and blues
- Audiences were confused as to if Elvis was white or black
Heartbreak Hotel by Elvis (1956)
- Growing popularity – Tom Parker of RCA purchases Presley’s contract for 35k
- First RCA recording, Top 5 on Pop, Rhythm and Blues, and Country charts simultaneously
- Expanded sound: more instruments, backup singers
Hound Dog (1956)
- “Radically transformed” Willie Mae Thornton’s 1952 R&B hit
- Increasingly heavy instrumentation
- Piano, Drums and background singers
- Moving closer to mainstream pop
Elvis’s Performance on the Milton Berle Show
Second performance:
- No guitar, dance, hip movements/gyrations created controversy
- “Unfit for family viewing” - Ed Sullivan
- “Elvis the Pelvis”
