clasical music

This article is about Western art music from 1000 AD to the present. For Western art music from 1750 to 1820, see Classical period (music). For other classical music traditions, see List of classical and art music traditions.

Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times.^[1] The central norms of this tradition became codified between 1550 and 1900, which is known as the common practice period.
European music is largely distinguished from many other non-European and popular musical forms by its system of staff notation, in use since about the 16th century.^[2] Western staff notation is used by composers to prescribe to the performer the pitch, speed, meter, individual rhythms and exact execution of a piece of music. This leaves less room for practices such as improvisation and ad libitum ornamentation, that are frequently heard in non-European art music (as in Indian classical music and Japanese traditional music) and popular music.^[3][4][5]
The term "classical music" did not appear until the early 19th century, in an attempt to "canonize" the period from Johann Sebastian Bach to Beethoven as a golden age.^[6] The earliest reference to "classical music" recorded by the Oxford English Dictionary is from about 1836.
Given the extremely broad variety of forms, styles, genres, and historical periods generally perceived as being described by the term "classical music," it is difficult to list characteristics that can be attributed to all works of that type. Vague descriptions are plentiful, such as describing classical music as anything that "lasts a long time," a statement made rather moot when one considers contemporary composers who are described as classical; or music that has certain instruments like violins, which are also found in other genres. However, there are characteristics that classical music contains that few or no other genres of music contain.
As regards Indian classical music in general, there are a huge number of modes (ragas). Musicians will elaborate a single mode in detail, largely through improvisation but also based on compositions and formal demands. There are also pieces (called "ragamala" or "ragamalika") in which modulations are employed. Individual pieces are shorter in Carnatic music, so recitals are constructed by selecting items in contrasting ragas. The rationale is specifically contrast (usually), as opposed to Turkish music where modes are chosen for a directed development, or Arabic music where the frequent modulations should be as unnoticed as possible, etc. A general aesthetic discussion of this type could become much more extensive.
In both Hindustani & Carnatic music, songs (or instrumental compositions in Hindustani music) are usually (although not always) preceded by an improvised unmeasured prelude (alap/alaapana) which is sometimes extensive. This is followed by the "composition section" in which a specific rhythmic cycle (tala) is used (ordinarily with percussion accompaniment). Although it is usually based upon a pre-existing composition, there are specific improvisational features to this section as well. This aspect earns Indian classical music comparisons with Western Jazz, with which it shares some demands.
Hindustani music is the music of North India, involving both Hindu and Muslim musicians. In this case (as opposed to every other world classical tradition, except European), there are a large number of high quality recordings. Different people will, no doubt, like different styles to varying degrees. In this case, I am only going to list some discs I particularly enjoy without any intention of coming close to encyclopedic coverage.
Dhrupad is the older style of Hindustani music, now rare. The style with which most readers will be more familiar is the more modern style, especially as represented in the Hindustani instrumental (sitar, etc.) list above.
Carnatic music is the music of South India, different in many of its terms and formal demands, although similar in overall outline. The two share some common origins, but the details of these relationships can be contentious.
Indian classical music continues to gain tremendously in popularity in the West, and is now taught widely. In addition to many opportunities to learn it at universities or in specialized instruction, more general resources are appearing. The recently released "Raga Guide" on Nimbus Records is a landmark and well worth pursuing for someone interested in learning the rudiments of ragas:

reggae

Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.
Reggae is based on a rhythmic style characterized by accents on the off-beat, known as the skank. Reggae is normally slower than both ska and rocksteady.^[1] Reggae usually accents the second and fourth beat in each bar, with the rhythm guitar also either emphasizing the third beat or holding the chord on the second beat until the fourth is played. It is mainly this "third beat", its speed and the use of complex bass lines that differentiated reggae from rocksteady, although later styles incorporated these innovations separately.

Etymology

The 1967 edition of the Dictionary of Jamaican English lists reggae as "a recently estab. sp. for rege", as in rege-rege, a word that can mean either "rags, ragged clothing" or "a quarrel, a row".^[2] Reggae as a musical term first appeared in print with the 1968 rocksteady hit "Do the Reggay" by The Maytals, but it was already being used in Kingston, Jamaica as the name of a slower dance and style of rocksteady.^[3] Reggae artist Derrick Morgan stated:

We didn't like the name rock steady, so I tried a different version of 'Fat Man'. It changed the beat again, it used the organ to creep. Bunny Lee, the producer, liked that. He created the sound with the organ and the rhythm guitar. It sounded like 'reggae, reggae' and that name just took off. Bunny Lee started using the world [sic] and soon all the musicians were saying 'reggae, reggae, reggae'.^[3]

Reggae historian Steve Barrow credits Clancy Eccles with altering the Jamaican patois word streggae (loose woman) into reggae.^[3] However, Toots Hibbert said:

There's a word we used to use in Jamaica called 'streggae'. If a girl is walking and the guys look at her and say 'Man, she's streggae' it means she don't dress well, she look raggedy. The girls would say that about the men too. This one morning me and my two friends were playing and I said, 'OK man, let's do the reggay.' It was just something that came out of my mouth. So we just start singing 'Do the reggay, do the reggay' and created a beat. People tell me later that we had given the sound its name. Before that people had called it blue-beat and all kind of other things. Now it's in the Guinness World of Records.^[4]

Bob Marley is said to have claimed that the word reggae came from a Spanish term for "the king's music".^[5] The liner notes of To the King, a compilation of Christian gospel reggae, suggest that the word reggae was derived from the Latin regi meaning "to the king".

country music

Country music (or country and western) is a blend of traditional and popular US musical forms traditionally found in the Southern United States and the Canadian Maritimes that evolved rapidly beginning in the 1920s.^[1] Distinctive variations of the genre have also emerged elsewhere including Australian country music.
The term country music gained popularity in the 1940s when the earlier term hillbilly music came to be seen as denigrating. Country music was widely embraced in the 1970s, while Country and Western has declined in use since that time, except in the United Kingdom and Ireland, where it is still commonly used.^[1] However, in the Southwestern United States a different mix of ethnic groups created the music that became the Western music of the term Country and Western. The term country music is used today to describe many styles and subgenres.
Country music has produced the two top selling solo artists of all time in the United States. Elvis Presley, who was known early on as “the Hillbilly Cat” and was a regular on the radio program Louisiana Hayride,^[2] went on to become a defining figure in the emergence of rock and roll. With 129.5 million albums sold, Presley is the top-domestic-selling solo artist in U.S. history. Contemporary musician Garth Brooks, with 128 million albums sold, is the second best-selling solo artist in U.S. history.^[3]
While album sales of most musical genres have declined since about 2005, country music experienced one of its best years in 2006, when, during the first six months, U.S. sales of country albums increased by 17.7 percent to 36 million. Moreover, country music listening nationwide has remained steady for almost a decade, reaching 77.3 million adults every week, according to the radio-ratings agency Arbitron, Inc.

blues music

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre^[1] that originated in African-American communities of primarily the Deep South of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads.^[2] The blues form, ubiquitous in jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll is characterized by specific chord progressions, of which the twelve-bar blues chord progression is the most common. The blue notes that, for expressive purposes are sung or played flattened or gradually bent (minor 3rd to major 3rd) in relation to the pitch of the major scale, are also an important part of the sound.
The blues genre is based on the blues form but possesses other characteristics such as specific lyrics, bass lines and instruments. Blues can be subdivided into several subgenres ranging from country to urban blues that were more or less popular during different periods of the 20th century. Best known are the Delta, Piedmont, Jump and Chicago blues styles. World War II marked the transition from acoustic to electric blues and the progressive opening of blues music to a wider audience. In the 1960s and 1970s, a hybrid form called blues-rock evolved.
The term "the blues" refers to the "blue devils", meaning melancholy and sadness; an early use of the term in this sense is found in George Colman's one-act farce Blue Devils (1798).^[3] Though the use of the phrase in African-American music may be older, it has been attested to since 1912, when Hart Wand's "Dallas Blues" became the first copyrighted blues composition.^[4][5] In lyrics the phrase is often used to describe a depressed mood

hip hop music

Hip hop music is an American musical genre that developed as part of hip hop culture, and is defined by four key stylistic elements: rapping, DJing/scratching, sampling (or synthesis), and beatboxing. Hip hop began in the South Bronx of New York City in the 1970s. The term rap is often used synonymously with hip hop, but hip hop also denotes the practices of an entire subculture.^[1]
Rapping, also referred to as MCing or emceeing, is a vocal style in which the artist speaks lyrically, in rhyme and verse, generally to an instrumental or synthesized beat. Beats, almost always in 4/4 time signature, can be created by sampling and/or sequencing portions of other songs by a producer.^[2] They also incorporate synthesizers, drum machines, and live bands. Rappers may write, memorize, or improvise their lyrics and perform their works a cappella or to a beat.

Origin of the term

Creation of the term hip hop is often credited to Keith Cowboy, rapper with Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five.^[3] However, Lovebug Starski, Keith Cowboy, and DJ Hollywood used the term when the music was still known as disco rap. It is believed that Cowboy created the term while teasing a friend who had just joined the U.S. Army, by scat singing the words "hip/hop/hip/hop" in a way that mimicked the rhythmic cadence of marching soldiers.^[3] Cowboy later worked the "hip hop" cadence into a part of his stage performance, which was quickly used by other artists such as The Sugarhill Gang in "Rapper's Delight".^[3]
Universal Zulu Nation founder Afrika Bambaataa is credited with first using the term to describe the subculture in which the music belonged; although it is also suggested that it was a derogatory term to describe the type of music.^[4] The first use of the term in print was in The Village Voice,^[5] by Steven Hager, later author of a 1984 history of hip hop.

pop music

Pop music (a term that originally derives from an abbreviation of "popular") is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented towards a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes. Pop music has absorbed influences from most other forms of popular music, but as a genre is particularly associated with the rock and roll and later rock style.Hatch and Millward define pop music as "a body of music which is distinguishable from popular, jazz and folk musics".^[1] Although pop music is often seen as oriented towards the singles charts it is not the sum of all chart music, which has always contained songs from a variety of sources, including classical, jazz, rock, and novelty songs, while pop music as a genre is usually seen as existing and developing separately.^[2] Thus "pop music" may be used to describe a distinct genre, aimed at a youth market, often characterized as a softer alternative to rock and roll

Origin of the term

The term "pop song," is first recorded as being used in 1926 in the sense of a piece of music "having popular appeal".^[4] Hatch and Millward indicate that many events in the history of recording in the 1920s can be seen as the birth of the modern pop music industry, including in country, blues and hillbilly music.^[5]
According to Grove Music Online, the term "pop music" "originated in Britain in the mid-1950s as a description for Rock and roll and the new youth music styles that it influenced ...".^[6] The Oxford Dictionary of Music states that while pop's "earlier meaning meant concerts appealing to a wide audience ...[,] since the late 1950s, however, pop has had the special meaning of non-classical music, usually in the form of songs, performed by such artists as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, ABBA, etc."^[7] Grove Music Online also states that "... in the early 1960s [the term] ‘pop music’ competed terminologically with Beat music [in England], while in the USA its coverage overlapped (as it still does) with that of ‘rock and roll’."^[6] Chambers' Dictionary mentions the contemporary usage of the term "pop art";^[8] Grove Music Online states that the "term pop music ... seems to have been a spin-off from the terms pop art and pop culture, coined slightly earlier, and referring to a whole range of new, often American, media-culture products".^[6]
From about 1967 the term was increasingly used in opposition to the term rock music, a division that gave generic significance to both terms.^[9] Whereas rock aspired to authenticity and an expansion of the possibilities of popular music,^[9] pop was more commercial, ephemeral and accessible.^[10] According to Simon Frith pop music is produced "as a matter of enterprise not art", is "designed to appeal to everyone" and "doesn't come from any particular place or mark off any particular taste". It is "not driven by any significant ambition except profit and commercial reward ... and, in musical terms, it is essentially conservative". It is, "provided from on high (by record companies, radio programmers and concert promoters) rather than being made from below ... Pop is not a do-it-yourself music but is professionally produced and packaged".

gothic rock

Gothic rock (also referred to as goth rock or simply goth) is a musical subgenre of post-punk and alternative rock that formed during the late 1970s. Gothic rock bands grew from the strong ties they had to the English punk rock and emerging post-punk scenes. The genre itself was defined as a separate movement from punk rock during the early 1980s largely due to the significant stylistic divergences of the movement; gothic rock, as opposed to punk, combines dark, often keyboard-heavy music with introspective and depressing lyrics. Notable gothic rock bands include Bauhaus, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Cocteau Twins, The Cure, The Sisters of Mercy, Virgin Prunes, Sex Gang Children, Paradise Lost, Christian Death, The Damned,^[2] Southern Death Cult,^[3] This Mortal Coil, Flesh for Lulu,^[4] UK Decay, The Mission, Specimen, Theatre of Hate, Theatre of Ice, Xmal Deutschland, The Danse Society, Dead Can Dance, Clan of Xymox, 45 Grave, Gene Loves Jezebel,^[5] Kommunity FK, Fields of the Nephilim and Alien Sex Fiend, among many others. Gothic rock gave rise to a broader goth subculture that includes clubs, fashion and numerous publications that grew in popularity in the 1980s.

Style, roots and influences

Gothic rock takes the guitar and synthesizer sounds of post-punk and uses them to construct "foreboding, sorrowful, often epic soundscapes".^[6] According to music journalist Simon Reynolds, standard musical fixtures of the genre include "scything guitar patterns, high-pitched basslines that often usurped the melodic role; [and] beats that were either hypnotically dirgelike or 'tribal'".^[7] Reynolds described the vocal style as consisting of "deep, droning alloys of Jim Morrison and Leonard Cohen".^[7] Many goth bands use drum machines that do not stress the back beat in the rhythm.^[8] Siouxsie and the Banshees and The Cure tended to play the flanging guitar effect, producing a brittle, cold, and harsh sound that contrasted with their psychedelic rock predecessors.^[9]
Gothic rock typically deals with dark themes addressed through lyrics and the music atmosphere. The poetic sensibilities of the genre led gothic rock lyrics to exhibit literary romanticism, morbidity, religious symbolism, and/or supernatural mysticism.^[6] Musicians who initially shaped the aesthetics and musical conventions of gothic rock include The Velvet Underground, David Bowie, Iggy Pop, and The Sex Pistols.^[10] Nico's 1969 album, The Marble Index, was also particularly influential.^[11] Gothic rock creates a dark atmosphere by drawing influence from the drones used by protopunk group The Velvet Underground, and many goth singers are influenced by the "deep and dramatic" vocal timbre of David Bowie, albeit singing at even lower pitches.^[8] J.G. Ballard was a strong lyrical influence for many of the early gothic rock groups; The Birthday Party drew on Arthur Rimbaud and Charles Baudelaire.^[12]
In 1976, Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice was published. The main character, although dark, wanted companionship and love. The book, according to music journalist Dave Thompson, slowly created an audience for gothic rock by word of mouth. The same year saw the punk rock band The Damned debut. The group's vocalist Dave Vanian was a former gravedigger who dressed like a vampire 24 hours a day. Brian James, a guitarist for the group, noted, "Other groups had safety pins and the spitting and bondage trousers, but you went to a Damned show, and half the local cemetery would be propped up against the stage".^[13]

History

Origins and early development

The term gothic was used to describe Velvet Underground singer Nico as early in 1971. The term was used occasionally in the years that followed.^[13] In the late 1970s, the word "gothic" was used to describe the atmosphere of post-punk bands like Joy Division. In 1979, Martin Hannett described Joy Division as "dancing music with Gothic overtones".^[14] The same year, Tony Wilson described the band as "gothic" on the television show Something Else.^[15] Not long after, the term was used in a derogatory fashion in reference to bands such as Bauhaus and Siouxsie and the Banshees.^[16] However, the term was not adopted as "positive identity, a tribal rallying cry" until a shift in the scene in 1982.^[14] In addition, Simon Reynolds identifies The Birthday Party and Killing Joke as essential proto-goth groups.^[17] Despite their legacy as progenitors of gothic rock, these groups disliked the label.^[18] Adam Ant's early work was also a major impetus for the gothic rock scene, and much of the fan base came from his milieu.^[19]
Bauhaus's debut single "Bela Lugosi's Dead", released in late 1979, is considered to be the beginning of the gothic rock genre.^[20] According to Peter Murphy the song was written to be tongue in cheek but since the group performed it with "naive seriousness" that is how the audience understood it.^[13] Around the same time post-punk bands such as Siouxsie and the Banshees and The Cure fully embraced the goth sound.^[6] With their fourth album, 1981's Juju, the Banshees established many of the classic Gothic qualities, lyrically and sonically.^[21] Steve Severin attributes the supernatural lyrical aesthetic of the album to the influence of The Cramps.^[21] The Cure were the most commercially successful of these groups, eventually recording two double platinum albums.^[22] The Cure's style was atmospheric and withdrawn, contrasting with their contemporaries The Birthday Party, who drew on funk, blues, and spastic, violent turmoil.^[23] Their 1981 single "Release the Bats" was particularly influential in the scene.^[24] Killing Joke were originally inspired by Public Image Ltd., borrowing from funk, disco, dub, and later, heavy metal.^[25] Calling their style "tension music", Killing Joke distorted these elements to provocative effect, as well as producing a morbid, politically-charged visual style.^[25]

Bauhaus live in concert 2006.

Gothic rock thrived in the early 1980s. Clubs such as the Batcave, in London, provided a venue for the goth scene.^[26] In 1982, Ian Astbury of the band Southern Death Cult used the term "gothic goblins" to describe Sex Gang Children's fans.^[27] Southern Death Cult were themselves icons of the scene, drawing aesthetic inspiration from Native American culture. The group appeared on the cover of NME in October 1982.^[28] The emerging scene was described as "positive punk" in a February 1983 article in NME. Journalist Richard North described Bauhaus and Theatre of Hate as "the immediate forerunners of today's flood" and declared, "So here it is: the new positive punk, with no empty promises of revolution, either in the rock'n'roll sense or the wider political sphere. Here is only a chance of self awareness, of personal revolution, of colourful perception and galvanisation of the imagination that startles the slumbering mind and body from their sloth."^[29] That year, myriad Goth groups emerged, including Flesh for Lulu, Play Dead, Rubella Ballet, Gene Loves Jezebel, UK Decay, Blood and Roses, The Virgin Prunes and Ausgang.^[30] The 4AD label released music in a lighter, more ethereal style, by groups such as Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance and Xmal Deutschland.^[30] The Icelandic group Kukl also appeared in this period, which included Björk and other musicians who later participated in The Sugarcubes.^[30]
Simon Reynolds speaks of a shift from early Goth to gothic rock proper, advanced by The Sisters of Mercy.^[31] As journalist Jennifer Park puts it, "the original blueprint for gothic rock had mutated significantly. Doom and gloom was no longer confined to its characteristic atmospherics, but as the Sisters demonstrated, it could really rock."^[32] The Sisters of Mercy, influenced by Leonard Cohen, Gary Glitter, Motörhead, The Stooges, The Velvet Underground, The Birthday Party, Suicide and The Fall, created a new, harder form of gothic rock.^[33] In addition, they incorporated a drum machine.^[33] Reynolds identifies their 1983 single "Temple of Love" as the quintessential Goth anthem of the year, along with Southern Death Cult's "Fatman".^[34] The group created their own record label, Merciful Release, which also signed The March Violets, who performed in a similar style.^[35] The Violets toured with The Danse Society, a group inspired by The Cure in their Pornography Peri.