I want to talk about the class presentation first. I am thinking about talking about particular bands... Either Pink Floyd or Led Zeppelin, but that might be cliche. Or I could just do a blog post about one of the two. I'm sure yet. But anyway...
20th century and popular music is what I'm going to talk about in this post. Well I think I should start with the Beatles. To me, they are different from any band I've ever heard. The way they drew people in to listen to them was so clever. They attracted so many different audiences. From my great grandmother to my little sister, the Beatles are liked by anyone. And their songs, there are so many perfect songs that I can't even pick a favorite, or even a ''Top 5". They changed their style a lot, I think so people wouldn't get bored of them.
The Rolling Stones and The Who came next with the British invasion, which the Beatles of course started. ;) Their music also amazes me, even if it is way older than me. I would prefer to listen to it over any of today's music.
The Doors. In the 60s, they were different than anything that had ever been heard. The melodies and harmonies get stuck in my head easier than anything. And the rhythm they had was amazing. I've read several books about them, and a few about Morrison's life before and after the Doors. And Pink Floyd! One of my favorite bands in the world. Everything about Pink Floyd is perfect to me. Their lyrics are strange and inspiring, and the music behind those lyrics just draw you in and take you to a different place it seems...
Led Zeppelin came out in the late 60s, about 1968. The videos I've watched of their earlier shows were amazing. The audience were just sitting there, and it looked like they were in a trance. I would be too. They dominated the 70's, but in 1980 after Bonham passed on, they were done. I thought it was really classy that they didn't find a replacement.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Monday, April 11, 2011
Jazz Music
Jazz is a musical tradition and style of music that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States from a confluence of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the now, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th century American popular music. Its West African styles are evident in its use of blue notes, improvisation, polyrhythms, and swung notes.
From its beginnings in the early 20th century jazz has spawned a variety of subgenres: New Orleans Dixieland dating from the early 1910s, big band-style swing from the 1930s and 1940s, bebop from the mid-1940s, a variety of Latin jazz fusions such as Afro-Cuban and Brazilian jazz, free jazz from the 1950s and 1960s, jazz fusion from the 1970s, acid jazz from the 1980s, and Nujazz in the 1990s. As the music has spread around the world it has drawn on local, national, and regional musical cultures, its characteristics being adapted to its despite its varied starting points, and causing new genres to erupt.
Improvisation is clearly one of its key elements. Early blues were very repetitive and used a call-and-response pattern, a common element in the African American oral tradition. These features are fundamental to the nature of jazz. While in European classical music elements of interpretation, ornamentation and accompaniment are sometimes left to the performer's discretion, the performer's primary goal is to play a composition just as it was written.
In jazz, however, the muisician will interpret a tune in very individual ways, never playing the same composition exactly the same way twice. Depending upon the performer's mood and personal experience, interactions with fellow musicians, or even members of the audience, a jazz musician/performer may alter melodies, harmonies or time signature at will.
In New Orleans and Dixieland jazz, performers took turns playing the melody, while others improvised. By the swing era, big bands were coming to rely more on arranged music: arrangements were either written or learned by ear and memorized—many early jazz performers could not read music. Individual soloists would improvise within these arrangements. Later, in bebop, the focus shifted back towards small groups; the melody would be stated briefly at the start and end of a piece but the core of the performance would be the series of improvisations in the middle. Later styles of jazz such as modal jazz abandoned the strict notion of a chord progression, allowing the individual musicians to improvise even more freely within the context of a given scale or mode. The avant-garde and free jazz idioms permit, even call for, abandoning chords, scales, and rhythmic meters.
From its beginnings in the early 20th century jazz has spawned a variety of subgenres: New Orleans Dixieland dating from the early 1910s, big band-style swing from the 1930s and 1940s, bebop from the mid-1940s, a variety of Latin jazz fusions such as Afro-Cuban and Brazilian jazz, free jazz from the 1950s and 1960s, jazz fusion from the 1970s, acid jazz from the 1980s, and Nujazz in the 1990s. As the music has spread around the world it has drawn on local, national, and regional musical cultures, its characteristics being adapted to its despite its varied starting points, and causing new genres to erupt.
Improvisation is clearly one of its key elements. Early blues were very repetitive and used a call-and-response pattern, a common element in the African American oral tradition. These features are fundamental to the nature of jazz. While in European classical music elements of interpretation, ornamentation and accompaniment are sometimes left to the performer's discretion, the performer's primary goal is to play a composition just as it was written.
In jazz, however, the muisician will interpret a tune in very individual ways, never playing the same composition exactly the same way twice. Depending upon the performer's mood and personal experience, interactions with fellow musicians, or even members of the audience, a jazz musician/performer may alter melodies, harmonies or time signature at will.
In New Orleans and Dixieland jazz, performers took turns playing the melody, while others improvised. By the swing era, big bands were coming to rely more on arranged music: arrangements were either written or learned by ear and memorized—many early jazz performers could not read music. Individual soloists would improvise within these arrangements. Later, in bebop, the focus shifted back towards small groups; the melody would be stated briefly at the start and end of a piece but the core of the performance would be the series of improvisations in the middle. Later styles of jazz such as modal jazz abandoned the strict notion of a chord progression, allowing the individual musicians to improvise even more freely within the context of a given scale or mode. The avant-garde and free jazz idioms permit, even call for, abandoning chords, scales, and rhythmic meters.
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