Music



Music

Introduction

The standard American popular or pop songs were composed between 1890 and 1950 (most of them between 1920 and 1940). They include songs from musicals, movies, variety shows and the songs of Tin Pan Alley, a group of New York publishers. It is important not to confuse these folk songs with jazz standards standards, which have a broader definition. Indeed, jazz standards include both popular songs and standards of each style of jazz, for example, "Donna Lee" by Charlie Parker, recognized as a standard bebop or "Dolphin Dance" by Herbie Hancock, recognized as being a standard of contemporary jazz.

Features of Pop songs

The advent of the microphone, in the 20s, along with the growth of the radios, was critical, especially with regard to vocal technique. The voice amplification allowed the exploitation of previously untapped stamps, the integration of inflections of the spoken voice, the controlled use of vibrato for ornamental purposes, the possibility for the listener to hear all the subtleties of vocal production, this created a real effect of intimacy between singer and listener. Were preferred baritones to tenors to sopranos and altos, the head voice was abandoned in favor of the exploitation of the lower register of the chest voice. The narrative songs have declined. The lyrics showed a much more personal and, in an English closer to that which was spoken by Americans, containing colloquialisms.

In this passage to an aesthetic closer to the emotions, the blues was a major influence for the singers, both in how to bring out the lyrics and feel that way now in the most creative interpretation of the melody, which sometimes included the "blue notes", the minor third and minor seventh and diminished fifth. The melody was to put words into harmony and value getting a little more colorful with blues and jazz influences. The pace, meanwhile, became more and more relaxed, tending to swing.

The structure of American popular songs were almost always the same. They had two parts: an introduction (the verse), which usually ended on the dominant, and the chorus (the chorus), usually form aaba of 32 measures. The latter form was most common, but some, such as ABAC, AABC, and even ababcb abcd, were also used. The structure of popular songs was picked up by jazz musicians, which only used the chorus as a canvas, they exposed the theme Rephrase more or less, then improvised on the structure. Another widely used method was to create a new melody over the harmonic structure of an existing popular song, a contrafact. For example, "Donna Lee" by Charlie Parker is a contrafact of "Indiana", composed in 1917 by JF Hanley and B. Macdonald.

Discussion

From 1942 to 1944, the American Federation of Musicians (AFM), went on strike, prohibiting all musicians to record, in order to stand against the record companies. The ban affected instrumentalists only, not the singers. These, along with vocal ensembles, has made ??several recordings of popular songs that have had great success. Thus, singers like Bing Crosby (1904-1977) and Frank Sinatra (1915-1998), ...