Mid 20 th Century Styles of Music Styles The styles we are going to be looking at are: Skiffle Skiffle Rock & Roll Rock & Roll 60s pop 60s pop Country Music Country Music Rock Rock Disco Disco Synth Pop Synth Pop Punk Punk Skiffle Skiffle is a type of popular music with jazz, blues and folk influences. It usually uses homemade or improvised instruments. It originated as a term in the United States and become popular in Britain in the 1950s. Improvised Jug Bands playing Blues and Jazz were common in the American South during the early decades of the 20 th Century. They used instruments such as the washboard, jugs, washtub bass, musical saw, comb-and-paper kazoos, as well as more conventional instruments such as acoustic guitar and banjo. The term Skiffle disappeared from American music in the 1940s. Skiffle might have been largely forgotten if not for its British revival in the 1950s. British skiffle grew out of the developing post- war British jazz scene, which saw a move away from swing music and towards authentic trad jazz. It was the success of skiffle recordings and the lack of a need for expensive instruments or high levels of musicianship that set off the British skiffle craze. skiffle Rock & Roll The Blues had a baby, and they called it Rock & Roll. Rock and roll Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll or rock 'n' roll) is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. Rock and roll Features Original Songs Buddy Holly & Chuck Berry wrote original songs. This inspired new and upcoming musicians like The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, and The Beach Boys, who turned Rock & Roll songwriting into an art form. Cultural Impact - Rock and roll has a larger cultural impact beyond its musical influence. Early rock heroes like Elvis and Little Richard were revered for a sense of rebellion and cultural ethos. American youth soon began to emulate their rock heroes in terms of hairstyle, clothing and attitude. The Guitar Hero - One of the other significant characteristics of rock and roll was the stripped down instrumentation, and the emergence of the guitar as a solo instrument. Prior to rock n' roll, music had been dominated by big bands and sophisticated arrangements. 60s Pop As the late fifties gave way to the early sixties, the rockabilly stars of the previous decade (the Everlys, Elvis, Roy Orbison) were still having hits, but the older pop- music stars were fading away as they struggled to find material that would click with this new and energetic generation of kids. There were 4 pockets: Doo wop & Girl GroupsDoo wop & Girl Groups- There origins come from acapella groups. They relied strongly on their handlers to pick the material, set up the recording and produce the product. Doo wop & Girl Groups R&B and Soul Scene R&B and Soul Scene - included many talented people who often didn't receive the popularity of less- talented white groups, because of barriers and prejudices against buying "race" records. Later in the decade, after the British groups acknowledged their debt to soul music, and as the civil rights movement inspired black pride, the general American public rediscovered these performers. R&B and Soul Scene California Scene California Scene - first dominated by instrumental surf groups like the Surfaris, the Crossfires, and Dick Dale & the Del- tones. Dale, the "King of Surf Guitar," in particular helped define how modern rock guitar solos would sound. Then the Beach Boys added vocal harmonies to the surf sound. This surf-&- drag, fun-in-the-sun sound was so popular that the style showed up all over the place, even in tv theme songs such as the Munsters and Hawaii Five-O. California Scene Motown Motown - The Motown record label in Detroit was founded by Berry Gordy Jr., and while its recording stars were all black, still you couldn't necessarily call this totally black or "soul" music. Instead, Gordy controlled the performing styles, clothes, even hairdos of his artists, grooming them for success in the wider mainstream American audiences. Among the many successful performers who recorded for Motown, one ought to mention Marvin Gaye, who was first to take control of his own career and insist on artistic control over his recordings. Motown The Beatles The Beatles were one of the most successful bands who helped reshape western Pop music. They helped to create a distinctly British sound which used: British (rather than American) accents standard song forms distinctive chord sequences and vocal harmonies rhythmic guitar work simple melodies clever lyrics Rock Rock music is a genre of popular music that originated as rock and roll in the 1950s, and developed into a range of different styles in the 1960s and later, particularly in the United Kingdom and United States. Musically, rock has centered on the Musically, rock has centered on the electric guitar, usually as part of a rock group with electric bass guitar and drums. Often piano, Hammond Organ or synthesizers are included. Usually in 4/4 time with verse chorus structure. Since the term rock began to be used in preference to rock and roll from the mid-1960s, it has often been contrasted with pop music, with which it has shared many characteristics, but from which it is often distanced by an emphasis on musicianship, live performance and a focus on serious and progressive themes. Disco Disco is a genre of Dance music.Dance Well-known late 1970s disco performers included ABBA, Donna Summer, The Bee Gees, KC and the Sunshine Band and Gloria Gaynor. a time signature of 4/4 a fast tempo four-on-the-floor rhythms guitar driven energy often with syncopated bass lines luscious orchestral arrangements vocals with reverb verse and chorus structure escapist lyrics about love and dancing Four-on-the-floor Four-on-the-floor is a drum style where the bass drum plays on all four beats of the 4/4 bar and the hi-hat cymbal plays on the offbeats. Four-on-the-floor Synth Pop Synth Pop is a genre of popular music that first became prominent in the 1980s and features the synthesizer as the prominent instrument. Characteristics are its use of synthesizers, drum machines and sequences to replace all other instruments. Many synthpop musicians had limited musical skills, relying on the technology to produce or reproduce the music. The result was often minimalist, with grooves that were "typically woven together from simple repeated riffs often with no harmonic 'progression' to speak of In the late 1980s, duos such as Erasure and Pet Shop Boys adopted a sound that was highly successful on the US dance charts but by the end of the decade synthpop had been abandoned. Artists such as La Roux, Lady Gaga and Owl City rivived synthpop for a short period of time. Lady Gaga Lady Gaga Punk Punk is a rock music genre that developed between 1969 and 1976 in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia. Punk bands created fast, hard-edged music, typically with short songs, stripped-down instrumentation, and often political, anti-establishment lyrics. Punk embraces a DIY ethic; many bands self-produced recordings and distributed them through informal channels. By late 1976, bands such as the Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Damned in London, and Television, Patti Smith, and the Ramones in New York City were recognized as the vanguard of a new musical movement. The following year saw punk rock spreading around the world, and it became a major cultural phenomenon in the United Kingdom. Sex PistolsSex Pistols Typical punk rock instrumentation includes one or two electric guitars, an electric bass, and a drum kit, along with vocals. Songs tend to be shorter than those of other popular genres. Most early punk rock songs retained a traditional rock 'n' roll verse-chorus form and 4/4 time signature. Punk rock vocals sometimes sound nasal, and lyrics are often shouted instead of sung in a conventional sense, particularly in hardcore styles. Shifts in pitch, volume, or intonational style are relatively infrequent. Complicated guitar solos are considered self-indulgent and unnecessary, although basic guitar breaks are common. Technological Developments Mid 20 th Century 8 Track Recording The eight track tape recording system was popular from 1965 to the late 1970s. It was a great commercial success and paved the way for all sorts of innovations in portable listening. This built the path for multi-track recording which came in later years. The Original Ampex 8-Track recorder was an internal project. The recorder stood over 7feet and weight 110kg. 8 tracks were chosen because that was the number of 0.070inch recording tracks with guard tracks that would fit into 1inch recording tape (the largest available at the time). These are the track widths used in all professional analog multitrack recorders excepts 24 track recorders. Atlantic records was the first record company to use a multi-track recorder in their studio. In professional audio setting today, audio engineers may use 64 tracks or more for their recordings, utilizing one or more tracks for each instrument played. Stereo LPoo CD Player A CD player is an electronic device that plays audio compact discs. CD players are often a part of home stereo systems, car audio systems, and personal computers. They are also manufactured as portable CD player devices. The process of playing an Audio CD, touted as a digital audio storage medium, starts with the plastic polycarbonate disc, an analogue medium that contains the digitally encoded data. The data is read out by loading the disc in the player's mechanism that scans the spiral data track using a laser beam. The tracking control is done by analogue amplifiers and then the high frequency analogue signal read from the disc is digitized, processed and decoded into analogue audio and digital control data which is used by the player to position the playback mechanism on the correct track, do the skip and seek functions and display track, time, index and, on newer players, title and artist information on a display placed in the front panel. The invention of the CD player was a breakthrough in the entertainment industry. This was the gateway into new technology for gaming consoles, computer systems and DVD players. The music scene changed dramatically as well. Before the CD player, casette and eight-track tapes had poor sound quality and were prone to damage. The CD player offered digital quality sound without feedback noise, as well as more entertainment options. In the late 1970s, Sony collaborated with Philips Electronics and Polygram to design a new type of music player. The first CD player was in production for two to three years before it was available to the public. CDP-101 was the first commercialized CD player on the market. Even though other companies began producing CD players. Sony and their partners started the trend and their products were less expensive than their competitors'. The initial player retailed for an astounding $900 and was officially on sale on October 1, Along with the CD player, Sony released over 50 CDs around the same period. The first CD was "52 Street" by Billy Joel. Multi Track recording Multi track recording (MTR)also known as multi tracking, double tracking, or trackingis a method of sound recording that allows for the separate recording of multiple sound sources to create a cohesive whole. Multi tracking became possible with the idea of simultaneously recording different audio channels to separate discrete "tracks" on the same tapea "track" was simply a different channel recorded to its own discrete area on tape whereby their relative sequence of recorded events would be preserved, and playback would be simultaneous or synchronized. The process was conceived and developed by Ross Snyder at Ampex in 1955 resulting in the first 8-track machine which used 1-inch tape. This 8- track recorder was sold to Les Paul for $10,000. It became known as the "Octopus". Les Paul, Mary Ford and Patti Page used the technology in the late 1950s to enhance vocals and instruments. From these beginnings, it evolved in subsequent decades into a mainstream recording technique. Multi-track recorders also differs from early stereo and three track recorders that were available at the time in that they can record individual tracks while preserving the other tracks. The original multi-channel recorders could only record all tracks at once. By the late 1970s, 3M, introduced the first digital multi-track recorder. It utilized 1 inch wide tape and recorded 32 tracks. Unlike analog tape, edits could not be accomplished with a grease pencil, razor blades and splicing tape. So a secondary 4 track editing & mix down recorder was also created with an electronically controlled edit controller to make effective digital edits. This early system used a 16-bit digital "word". Unfortunately, the only converters of the day were 12 bit & 4 bit. So 2 were cascaded/daisychained to create the necessary 16-bit word for 96 DB of dynamic range. The signal was then sampled faster than any other digital recordings made up till that time at 50,000 times per second a.k.a. 50 kHz. It was known to be the best sounding of all the later digital multi-track recorders. Although multitrack recording can be performed in either analog or digital format, as we mentioned, the music industry has switched over to digital -- and for good reason. Bartlett explains that digital has several advantages over analog. For starters, digital yields higher sound quality and steady pitch, and you'll get none of the hiss sound or distortion that can plague analog recordings. (Of course, some musicians might prefer the hiss and distortion from analog, but that's a matter of taste.) Digitally, you can choose to record everything on a computer, allowing you to view and edit waveforms of the recorded music with ease. In terms of multitrack recording, digital can offer you more tracks -- perhaps only limited by the amount of computer space you have. With digital, it's also easier to fix mistakes, as well as use random access to skip to a particular part of a song to edit. Sending the digital files long distances is a breeze, too. Instead of mailing physical analog tape reels, digital files can be sent over the Internet. And because you won't have to buy expensive tape or maintain tape recorders, digital studios can be significantly less costly. Amazingly, Bartlett says you can put together a respectable digital home studio for less than $2,000, which would be just as good or better than a $100,000 studio back when analog was standard.