1917-18
US enters WWI
1919
Prohibition (18th Amendment)
1920
US women get the right to vote (19th Amendment)
1929
Stock Market crash that initiated the Great Depression
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
The only US President elected to four consecutive terms
Theodore Roosevelt
Oversaw the US expansion to 48 states and the completion of the Panama Canal
Flappers
Radical young US women in the 1920s who smoked, and had short bobbed hair and relatively short skirts
Technology of the 1920s
AM radio, electric microphone, 79-RPM records, movies with sound
Technology of the 1930s
Stereo (2-channel) recording and playback
Technology of the 1940s
FM radio, 33-RPM stereo LP records, 45-RPM singles, commercial TV, reel-to-reel tape recording
Robert Johnson*
Delta Blues “Cross Road Blues”
Bessie Smith
Classic Blues. Radio stations started playing her, impacting popular styles with blues.
The Soul Stirrers
Early Gospel Music. Created by Alan Lomax.
Jimmie Rodgers*
Early Country & Western “Blue Yodel No. 8-Muleskinner Blues.” Transitioned folk roots to country. Used yodeling and thumb-and-brush strumming
Gene Autry
Early Country & Western. The Singing Cowboy. Over 90 movies that carried the genre to audiences. Christmas songs too.
Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys*
Early Country & Western “New San Antonio Rose.” Western swing music that was more raucous.
Bill Monroe
Bluegrass. Joined Earl Scruggs
Earl Scruggs
Bluegrass. Popularized banjo playing technique of three-finger picking.
Rodgers and Hammerstein*
Broadway “Some Enchanted Evening”
Irving Berlin
Tin Pan Alley. Most successful figure with 1500 songs in 60 years. “God Bless America”
Cole Porter
Tin Pan Alley. Crafted the popular standard with “Night and Day.”
Bing Crosby
Tin Pan Alley “White Christmas”
Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers
Dance Musicals. Did 9 song-and-dance films, bringing the genre to prominence.
Woody Guthrie*
Folk Music “This Land is Your Land.” Poor man focused on working class people during the Dust Bowl era.
Pete Seeger
Folk Music. Urban folk singer because he was born wealthy but wrote songs without personal experience or culture. Social and economic activism.
Walt Disney
Animated Film. Most famous movie musicals of the era.
Louis Armstrong*
Hot Jazz “Hotter Than That.” Encouraged being proud of heritage. Trumpeter-singer beginning in New Orleans, to Chicago and New York City nightclubs owned by gangters during the prohibition. Invented the scat singing style.
Duke Ellington*
Big-Band Jazz “It Don’t Mean A Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing.” Used lush harmonies and instruments to create a sensual feeling.
Benny Goodman
Big-Band Jazz. Jewish clarinetist from New York.
Louis Jordan and His Tymphani Five
“Jump” Blues/Early R&B “Caldonia.” Small horn groups. Influenced rock n roll.
Charlie Parker & Dizzy Gillespie
Bebop “Koko.” After WWII. Small group of people improvise at high speeds.
Aaron Copland
Traditional Art Music. Classical sound based on legends and imagery from the American “Old West.”
Samuel Barber
Traditional Art Music. His Symphonic poem was premiered on national TV by NBC.
Charles Ives
Experimental Art Music. Insurance salesperson. Stated several melodies/rhythms/keys at the same time. Quoted patriotic melodies.
Henry Cowell
Experimental Art Music. Expression and intensity by playing open strings of the piano with hands and fingernails.
Edgard Varese
Experimental Art Music. “Ionization” depicted scientific ionization of molecules through musical expansion and variation of rhythmic cells.
John Cage
Experimental Art Music. Concept of prepared piano: inserted household products into the strings.
Scott Joplin*
Ragtime “The Entertainer”
Kern and Hammerstein*
Broadway “Ol’ Man River” from Showboat. Merged African-American blues and Anglo-American theater styles.
Rhythm
Aspect of time in music
Syncopation
Off beats
Dynamics
Relative loudness or quietness
Melody
Horizontal presentation of pitch
Harmony
Vertical presentation of pitch
Tone color
Sound created by the instruments
Texture
Inter-relationship of musical ideas being heard at one time
Monophonic Texture
Melody with no accompaniment
Homophonic Texture
Melody with simple chord accomaniment
Polyphonic
Complex interweaving of several melodies at once
Binary Form
AB form
Ternary Form
ABA form
Stophic form
A song that has several different versus of text
Rhythm
Aspect of time in music
Cross Road Blues
Robert Johnson
Blue Yodel No. 8 – Muleskinner Blues
Jimmie Rodgers
This Land is Your Land
Woody Guthrie
The Entertainer
Scott Joplin
Hotter Than That
Louis Armstrong
It Don’t Mean A Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing
Duke Ellington
Caldonia
Louis Jordan and His Tymphany Five
New San Antonio Rose
Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys
Ol’ Man River
Kern and Hammerstein
Some Enchanted Evening
Rodgers and Hammerstein
Koko
Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie
The Unaswered Question
Charles Ives
The Banshee
Henry Cowell
Appalachian Spring
Aaron Copland
Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano
John Cage