Week
Week 2
The Course

 

Early styles of different ethnic groups and the introduction of new media. both separating and "democratizing" styles of music
























Different treatments of an early African American song with religious text.














Joseph Spence from the Bahamas












A scene from the 2002 production of "Music of The Bahamas", produced by Ringplay Productions and featuring Particia Bazard, and the cast. This video was recorded by Plantation Pictures Ltd. and the stage production was directed by Philip A. Burrows. "Music of The Bahamas" was written by Nicolette Bethel and Philip A. Burrows and was adapted from, Music in The Bahamas; its Roots, Rhythm and Personality by E. Clement Bethel.

Aaron Neville of The Neville Brothers















Queen Quet & De Gullah Conneckshun












Scottish, Irish and English "modal" music in the Applachan Mountains

Rain and Snow (anon folkmusic)



































Your homework:
Find two songs that use the call and response form.
Find a song we haven't heard with a boogie bassline.


 This week, we will examine many differing styles of music in America which have been used in rock music, a few common chord progressions that continue to be used, even hundreds of years later, and some more information about media and its influence on us and music.
Check these out!
example a

example b

Here we have "stolen" music - Even the subject There is no Rose vs. There Is A Rose makes it pretty suspect. This happens all the time in every era. A good melody seems to remain a good melody, no matter what permutation you put it in (bad grammer - guess I'd better pay attention to thise Grammerly commercials!). However, the melody AND the words are just too close, and sometimes, very expensive lawsuits occur when things seem too close. It is obvious in the above recordings that the Britten is the "original. The poetry, though, is from very early Christian times. There are many different settings of these lyrics here's another.
One more to check
example a

example b

Music melodies may actually have certain patterns we prefer: tha's perhaps why we keep recycling them. Religious texts are usually frozen in time and keep recurring for centuries. As a consequence, new musical settings are constantly being added to religious texts and often, what was once "classical" in style becomes "pop" or rock music. The above two examples are only a tiny fraction of this process.

When we look at rock music, the religious component is always easy to find.
Consider thhis song from Joseph Pindar and his family. This is probably as close as we get to what and how African slaves took European hymn music and re-did it their way.






I Bid You Goodnight









and a bit more sophisticated
I Bid You Goodnight

 












and a rock n' roll version with Aaron Neville
I Bid You Goodnight
 
This is one of those new arrangements which is used for an encore at a concert - it shows where doo-wop comes from as well as little bits of the Acapella groups like Take 6 and Pentatonix come from.

I Bid You Goodnight

And finally -The Grateful Dead

Now we'll listen to the Gullah Geetchee people of the Carolina Sea Islands that stretch from North Carolina to the North Coast of Florida)
Their ansestors are among the most continuous residents of a single area in the U. S. and their traditional music is still very close to music of West Africa. Most tradidtional is the rhythm man, who beats the ground with a stick or staff in a rhythm still found in today's West African music.

I Dun Dun

This song shows us two very important aspects of African music from the 1600s  - Call and Response and a steady rhythm "track" (as we now refer to it) - Leader sings - chorus responds with the same phrase the leader sang.
The rhythm is most frequently heard in Africa on Agogo bells (a pair of connected bells with two different pitches) and in Latin music the claves.


Another important addition to what gave rock'n roll its sound was Scottish, English and Irish music. Often referred to as "modal music." This music hadn't yet become "well tempered," and actually never has. This gives each scale tuning its own special flavor. Here's an example
In this example, Obray Ramsey is playing the fiddle in the modal style of the Applachan Mountains (not well tempered). Notice how the fiddle sound "out of tune" with the singer and the other instruments. Tha's because he is playing in one of the "modes." In this example Ramsey is playing the banjo and singing himself. Sounds better I think.... being "in tune" means being in tune with the scale you are using; and that's not always the European well tempered scales. Here is another recording of the same song sung by Molly Tuttle
Here is the final example of the same song - this time by The Grateful Dead
This mode is called the Mixolydian mode: The seventh note of the major scale is lowered by one half a step. This is a favorite rock mode.
This music (which we tend to call bluegrass today) combined with a "rock band" (more often than not, two guitars, a stand-up bass, drums) led to the style called "Rockabilly."
 Here are some very early (1938) songs with a boogie/blues style. This boogie style comes from the piano style called Boogie Woogie. One of its most recognized players was Mead Lux Lewis.
This boogie woogie style is the real prototype for rock n' roll songs of the fifties. You will hear this "boogie" bassline throughout the entire decade in songs by Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, etc.

This style, combined with the Appalachan style became known as the "rockabilly" style.  It was the first style of music combining both the boogie style of the African American style with the Applachan style. One of the definite clues of this style is the "hiccup" in the singing. Here are a few examples of this hiccup style
That'll be the Day - Buddy Holly and the Crickets - the hiccup occurs @00:18
Party Doll - Buddy Knox
Be Bop A Lula - Gene Vincent
Here are The Stray Cats doing a retro version - he almost gets it right, but doesn't do enough of the hiccupping!
Even though she dosen't do the hiccup very often, I would be amiss if I left out Wanda Jackson "The Queen of Rockabily. She was also as much a "country" singer in the Patsy Cline style. The country style usually included the "pedal steel" guitar (also called the Hawaian guitar) This instrument was literally what made something a "country song," as opposed to the rockabilly style of two guitars, bass, drums, and occasionally piano.