Popular Music in America

1. Popular Music in America Introductory Perspectives

2. Goals • Think creatively and critically about popular music • Listen to popular music and learn something about its history and the people and institutions behind it • Cover a wide range of music from nineteenth century to the turn of the 21st century

3. Popular Music—Definitions • Music created with commercial success in mind • Popularity measured in numbers—how many albums sold, how many Number One hits • Can be compared with other styles that differ in intent as well as musical result • Popular • Classical • Folk • This definition is problematic because some music crosses the boundaries of genre. • “Garage bands,” which are similar to folk music • Piano rags by Scott Joplin: “art” or “popular” music? • The Beatles’ album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

4. Popular Music—Definitions • In broad terms, popular music can be used to indicate • music that is mass-produced and disseminated via the mass media, • at various times has been listened to by large numbers of Americans, and • typically draws on a variety of preexisting musical traditions.

5. Theme One: Listening • Critical listening • Listening that consciously seeks out meaning in music • How music is put together • Its cultural significance • Its historical development • Even nonmusicians have much more knowledge about music than they may realize: • A chord that sounds “wrong” • A note that is “out of tune” • Or a singer who is “off key”

6. Theme One: Listening • In everyday life, people often do not think carefully about the music they hear. • Much popular music is designed not to call critical attention to itself. • Other types of popular music—big band swing, funk, punk rock, hard rap, thrash metal—seek to grab attention but do not, by and large, encourage close analysis.

7. Theme One: Listening • The point of analyzing popular music is not to ruin your enjoyment of it. • You are encouraged to • expand your tastes, • hear the roots of today’s music in earlier styles, and • be a more critically aware “consumer” of popular music.

8. Theme One: Listening • Formal analysis • The musical structure of the music • Much popular music draws on a limited number of basic formal structures. • Twelve-bar blues • AABA melodic structure

9. Musical Process • How is a song interpreted? • Listening and studying popular music is not simply analyzing a song but also studying interpretations by particular performers.

10. Terms Specific to Popular Music and This Course • Riff—repeated pattern designed to generate rhythmic momentum • Hook—catchy musical phrase or riff • Groove—channeled flow of “swinging” or “funky” or “phat” rhythms

11. Terms Specific to Popular Music and This Course • Timbre—characteristic sound of an instrument or voice • Sometimes called “tone color” • Plays an important role in establishing the “soundprint” of a performer

12. Lyrics—The Words of a Song • In many cases, words are designed to be one of the most immediately accessible parts of a song. • In other cases, the lyrics seem to demand interpretation. • Dialect • Some musical genres are strongly associated with particular dialects.

13. Theme Two: Music and Identity • We use popular music to find and express our identity • Popular music is closely tied to stereotypes. • People value music for many reasons • To understand the cultural significance of popular music, we must examine • the music—its tones and textures, rhythms and forms—and • the broader patterns of social identity that have shaped Americans’ tastes and values.

14. Theme Three: Music and Technology • Technology has shaped popular music and has helped disseminate it. • Older technologies often take on important value as tokens of an earlier, often claimed better, time. • People frequently seek to exert creative control over the role of musical machines in their own lives.

15. Theme Four: The Music Business • The production of popular music typically involves the work of many individuals performing different roles. • Sheet music • From the nineteenth century until the 1920s, it was the principal means of disseminating popular songs • The music business relies on predicting popular musical tastes and trends. • Relationship between “majors” and “indies”

16. Theme Five: Centers and Peripheries • Center-periphery model • “Center”—several geographically distinct centers where power, capital, and control over mass media are concentrated • “Periphery”—smaller institutions and people historically excluded from the political and economic mainstream