Tin Pan Alley
By the 1910’s, had reached its golden age. Most songs from here followed a standard from of one or more verses followed by a thirty-two-measure chorus in an AABA, ABAB, ABAC pattern.
Irving Berlin
Tin Pan Alley songwriter. Wrote both music and lyrics for his songs. One of America’s most prolific and most loved song writers. Songs include “God Bless America” and “White Christmas”.
Cole Porter
Wrote both music and lyrics for his songs. Educated at Yale, Harvard, and the Schola Contorum in Paris, Porter is remembered for his suave, urbane, sophisticated lyrics that revel in innuendo and for his catcy tunes. Songs include “Let’s Do It” “I Get a Kick Out of You” and “You’re the Top”
George Gershwin
A composer of song, musical, and jazz, writing to lyrics almost exclusively of his brother, Ira. Musicals include “Strike Up the Band”, “Of Thee I Sing”, and “Lady Be Good”. Also became the most famous and frequently played American classical composer.
“Girl Crazy”
Included “I got Rhythm”, sung by Ethal Merman. Became an instant hit. Composed by Gershwin in 1930.
Jerome Kern
One of the four most popular Tin Pan Alley songwriters.
Harold Arlen
Show Boat
Written by Jerome Kern. Exemplifying example of integrated musical Broadway theatre. Incorporated various musical styles, genres, and sources.
Vaudeville shows
Loose collections of variety acts
Revue
a complete show made up primarily of musical numbers that often included many performers.
Ziegfeld Follies
Included variety entertainment, star performers, and troupes of beautiful female dancers. Important to the distribution of popular songs.
Musicals
Complex collaborations with different artists responsible for the music, lyrics, book, choreography, staging, sets, and costumes. Could be vehicles for star performers or new songs.
Operetta
Short operas with less costume, staging, and accompaniment.
Harold Arlen
Popular Tin Pan Alley and hollywood musical composer. Wizard of Oz
32 Bar Chorus
in an AABA, ABAB, or ABAC pattern. The focus was especially on the chorus, where songwriters placed their catchiest rhythms and melodies.
Blues
One of the most influential genres of music tocome out of early-twentiethcentury America. Of Afro-American origin. Consisted of a I-IV-I-V-I progression
Bessie Smith
“Empress of the Blues” The most successful and prominent African-American musician of the 1920’s.
Delta Blues
Came primarily from the Mississippi Delta region and is associated primarily with male African-American singers and guitarists. More directly rooted in oral tradition, therefore more flexibility of textual and musical form and harmonic choices.
Jelly Roll Morton
Pianist. Extremely central in the development of the NEw Orleans Jazz style.
Louis Armstrong
Trumpet player. Extremely central in the development of the NEw Orleans Jazz style.
Front Line
In New Orleans Jazz Style, the melodic instruments-trumpets, clarinet, and trombone.
Rhythm Section
In New Orleans Jazz Style, keeps the beat- Piano, drums, and banjo.
Scat Singing
Singing syllables rather than playing notes on an instrument.
Swing
The combination of stylish, well-executed arrangements with hard-driving jazz rhythms produced this music.
Fletcher Henderson
African American who organized big bands.
Benny Goodman
White. Organized Big Bands.
Duke Ellington
One of the leading composers of the Jazz Age and after, and one of the most influential American composers ever. Creole Rhapsody
Contrafact
A new tune composed over a harmonic progression borrowed from a particular song.
Count Basie
African American, organized big bands.
Diagetic/Source Music
Music that is performed by characters on screen.
Nondiegetic/Underscoring Music
Background music that is not heard by the characters. Provides mood and setting for the audience.
Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers
Musical singing and acting duo that made them international stars.
The Wizard of Oz
By Harold Arlen, introduced color photography to film musicals and launched the career of Judy Garland.
Max Steiner
Viennese. Established the model for the Hollywood film score in “King Kong”. Wagnerian opera without singing. Also Gone with the Wind and Casablanca.
Erich Wolfgang Korngold
Viennese. Composer of opera and classical concert works. The adventures of robin hood.
Alfred Newman
First prominent American born film composer. Wuthering Heights. How the West was won.
Les Six
A younger group of composers absorbed the strong influence of neoclassicism but sought to escape the old political dichotomies.

Arthur Honneger,
Darius Milhaud,
Francis Poulenc,
Germaine Tailleferre,
Georges Auric, and
Luis Durey.

Neue Sachlichkeit
Means “New Objectivity”. In opoostiion to the emotional intensity of the late romantics and the expressionism of Schoenberg and Berg. It oppose complexity and promoted the use of familiar elements, borrowing from popular music and jazz or from classical and baroque procedures.
Ernst Krenek
Articulated the Neue Sachlichkeit, and wrote Jonny Spielt Auf.
Jonny Spielt Auf
Written by Ernst Krenek and premiered in Leipzig in 1927, was the embodiment of Neue Sachlichkeit.
Kurt Weill
Another sympathizer with the Neue Sachlichkeit, he wanted to appeal to the everyday listener rather than the intellectual. Wrote the opera Aufstieg und Fall Der Stadt Mahagony.
Aufstieg und Fall Der Mahagony
A play centered around fugitives from justice that build a city without any legal or moral taboos. The town turns out to be more of a hell. The opera includes many modern instruments including saxophones, timpanis, etc. And borrows lots of idioms from jazz, etc.
Bertolt Brecht
Collaborated as the playwright for Aufstieg und Fall Der Mahagony.
Die Dreigroschenoper
The three penny opera by Krut Weill and playwright Bertolt Brecht. Poked fun at American hit songs. Based off of the Beggar’s Opera.
Paul Hindemith
One of the most prolific composers of the century. Emphasized the experience of the performance, and taught two generations of musicians at Berlin, Yale, and Zurich.
Gebrauchmusik
“Music for use” Designed by Paul Hindemith to create for young performers music that was high in quality, modern in style, and challenging yet rewarding to perform.
Mathis der Maler
An Opera based off of an altar paited by Mathis Neithardt. The opera served as an allegory as rebellion to the Nazi regime.
Isenheim Altarpiece
by Mathis Neithardt, it is almost expressionist in style with the paintint identifying with common peasant. After the painting, the painter joined the peasants in a revolt.
Carl Orff
The only German composer to gain an international reputation during the Nazi regime. Wrote Carmina Burana.
Carmina Burana
By Carl Orff, for chorus and orchestra. Set medieval poems akin to goliard songs in an attractive, deceptively simple neo-modal idiom.
Socialist realism
A realistic style of portraying socialism in a positive light.
Sergei Prokofiev
Prolific. Symphonies and Piano. Modern and neo-classical. Peter and the Wolf. Romeo and Juliet.
Alexander Nevsky
A film with music written by Prokofiev. Became one of the mose celebrated film scores of the era. (1938)
Dmitri Shostakovich
Lived completely under the soviet regime, though not sympathetic with it.
Lady MAcbeth of the Mtsensk District
A popular opera by Shostakovich that was shut down by Stalin in 1936 because he didn’t like its surreal expression of violence and sex.
Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony
A reaction to the soviet regime and the crimes to which it was committing. While the regime recognized it as Shostakovich finally buckling into submission, it was actually a rebellious composition that was recognized as such by the masses.
Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony
A political (as all were) piece representing the heroic resistance of the soviet regime in Leningrad.
Heitor Villa Lobos
Brazilian Nationalist. Composed “Choros” and “Bachianas brasileiras”. Responsible for major musical educational reform within Brazil.
Carlos Chavez
Mexican Nationalist. Conductor of Mexico’s first professional orchestra. Wrote Sinfonia India, using Aztec scenarios.
Silvestre Revueltas
Mexican Nationalist. Composed Sensemaya, simliar to Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring and privitism.
Edgard Varese
French-born American Nationalist. Wrote Ameriques and Ionisation.
Ionisation
By Edgard Varese, the first experimental piece for percussion ensemble.
Henry Cowell
Californian. Largely experimental and lacked in official training. Wrote “The Tides of Manaunaun”.
Tone Cluster
Chords of diatonic or chromatic seconds produced by pressing the keys with the fist or forearm. “Invented” by Henry Cowell.
The Tides of Manaunaun
Written by Henry Cowell, introduced a heavy use of tone clusters.
New Musical Resources
A book written by Henry Cowell regarding his new ideas in musical textures and procedures.
Ruth Crawford Seeger
The first woman to win a Guggenheim Fellowship in music. Her best known work is her string quartet.
String Quartet (1931)
Retrograde motion and two part counterpoint. 1 then 2 then 3 and so on.
Rhapsody in Blue
Gershwin’s most famous piece, billed as a jazz concerto, had its premiere as the centerpiece of an extravagant concert organized by Paul Whiteman as “An experiment in modern music.
An Experimentin Modern Music
an extravagant concert organized by Paul Whiteman
Aaron Copland
Established the American nationalist sound that we recognize today. Most important American composer of his generation. Music for the Theatre. Billy the Kid.
Billy the Kid
Balet by Aaron Copland. Cowboy idioms.
Appalachian Srping
Balet by Aaron Copland. American idioms.
William Grant Still
African-American. Also incorporated specifically American idioms into art music. Wrote ballets and more. Wrote Afro-American Symphony.
Afro-American Symphony
The first symphonic work by an African-American composer to be performed by a major American orchestra.
Virgil Thomson
was a witty and caustic critic for the New York Herald-Tribune as well as a composer. Focussed on music that was simple, direct, playful, and focused on the present. Wrote Four saints in Three acts.
Gertrude Stein
Collaborated with Virgil Thomson in his operas Four Saints in Three Acts and The Mother of us All.
Four Saints in Three Acts
An opera by Virgil Thomson with collaboration from Gertrude Stein.
The Mother of Us All.
An opera by Virgil Thomson with collaboration from Gertrude Stein. After Susan B. Anthony, women’s suffrage.
Grand Ol’ Opry
Helped establish NAshville as the venter for country music.
rhythm and blues
Typically consisted of a vocalist, piano or organ, electric guitar, bass, and drums. They performed new songs built on twelve bar blues or thirty two bar popular song formulas.
Hank Williams
A postwar (world war 2) star of country music.
back beats
rhythm emphasis on the second and fourth beats, characteristic of rhythm and blues.
cover recordings
White singers performing songs already recorded by black singers for profit.
Rock and Roll
Combined the unrelenting beat of rhythm and blues with the milder guitar background of country music and drew on numerous elements in both traditions, from rhythm to timbre.
Alan Freed
A popular radio disc jockey in Cleveland accredited with coining the term “Rock and Roll”.
Bill Haley and the Comets
Launched Rock and Roll nationally in 1955 with the hit song “Rock Around the Clock” in the film “Blackboard Jungle”
The Beatles
John Lennon, Ringo Starr, George Harrison, and Paul McCartney. Wildly popular in the 1960s. Launched Rock and Roll internationally.
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
An album by the Beatles. embraced a wide cariety of musical styles, from British music hall songs to Indian sitar music. Rock based music of depth.
The British Invasion
After the Beatles 1964 American tour, an influx into North America of British bands such as the rolling stones, the kings, the Who, the Animals, etc.
Jimi Hendrix
A guitarist virtuoso established the electric guitar like Paganini had done for the violin.
Folk Music
Deliberately simple, featuring one or more singers with guitar and often the audience was encourage to join in the singing.
Bob Dylan
In combination of protest, this musician combined traditional folk styles with simple guitar harmonies, ultimately combining folk and rock traditions. Blowing in the Wind and The Times they are Changin.
Soul
The leading African American tradition of popular music in the 1960s. Ray Charles. James Brown. Aretha Franklin
Motown
A detriot based record company founded and owned by AFrican American entrepreneur Berry Gordy. Dominated the Soul and sometimes the Pop charts as well.
Salsa
Originating in New York and Puerto Rico, it is a mix of Cuban dance styles with Jazz, rock, and Puerto Rican musical elements.
Rodgers and Hammerstein
Produced some of Broadway’s best-loved shows, including Oklahoma, Carousel, South PAcific, and the King and I
Bernstein and Sondheim
Wrote West Side Story, Composer then Lyricist.
Miklos Rozsa
Developed several different styles. Film Composer. Ben Hur. Streetcar name Desire.
Bernard Herrman
Film Composer. Citizen Kane. Dissonant.
Bebop
a New style of jazz built around virtuosic soloists fronting small combos. Emerged in the early 1940s during the waning years of the swing craze.
Charlie Parker
Alto Saxophonist. wrote anthropology.
Cool Jazz
Softer timbres, more relaxed pace, and rhythmic subtleties inaugurated the trend.
free jazz
This experimental style moved away from jazz standards, turning instead to a language built of melodic and harmonic gestures, innovative sounds, atonality, and free forms using improvisation that was carried on outside the structure of standard jazz forms.