popular song from 1960

A lead singer sings the tune

The backing singers sing the harmonies

A cappella is no accompianment

Riffing is ornamenting the tune

**** singing is improvising using do and dat sounds

Vibrato is quivering very slightly up and down pitch

Falseto is a man making his voice very high

portamento is sliding from one note to another

lead guitars play the tune, rhythm guitars play chords and harmony, bass guitars play the bass line.

Electric guitars can fuzz (fuzzy sounding distortion), distortion (grungy dirty sound), wah wah (its in the name) compression(evens out volume) chorus (makes it sound like more than one instrument playing), panning (playing different sounds through different speakers) and flange (doubles up music but alters phase of one part sounds metallic).

Drums add rhythm and set tempo

Syntesizers can do anything.

Starts with intro to hook people in

then verse chorus structure, verses have same tune but different lyrics. chorus are different to verse but same as each other.

to make it more interesting there is often a middle-eight or bridge which is completely diffrent.

there is then a coda or outro which could fade out or finish with a bang.

call and response, part one asks question, part two answers

Riffs each part has its own riff they fit together and often change for the chorus

Ballad this is a song that tells a story each verse has the same tune and rhythm.

32 bar structure, breaks down into four eight bar parts, 1,2 and 4 have the same theme, part 3 has a contrsting theme. the 32 bars are repeated as a chorus, the verse is only played once it is slow and more like an intro.

had huge influence on pop

Afro-american early very slow and sad, with guitar or banjo. then when came to cities jazz instruments added. 40 and 50s speeded up with electric guitar and bass, rhythm and blues.

12 bar blues, 4/4 time, 12 bars long, only I IV AND V used, repeated through songs, 7ths added. goes I I I I, IV IV I I, V IV I V.

Pop songs often have blues bass lines like walking bass or boogie -woogie bass.

They also often use blue notes, deliberately played flat, 3rd, 7th and 5th.

Bits pop songs nicked from jazz, improvisation, chromatic notes, jazz intruments, jazz chords and call and reponse.

Rock n roll, is 12 bar blues played more quickly on electric guitars, the singing has a country and western style, has a dancy feel.

The Beatles have influenced most bands since 1960 coz they put a little bit of everything in, rock n roll, rhytm n blues, country and western, classical and noin western culture.

the pop versions of operas.

invented in the USA

before rock and roll the only pop songs

Solo song characters, sang by one person about emotions

Duet well guess

action songs tell you whats going in the plot

chorus numbers whole cast sing together.

Ballads have been around since the 15th century

Modern rock and pop ballads still tell stories, they are often slow and sad and are about love, each verse has the same rhythm and tune but different lyrics.

examples, blowing in the wind and piano man.

Reggae is chilled originates from jamaica, slow relaxed tempo, offbeat feel, bass guitar loud and syncopated, electric guitars play short muted offbeat riffs. just 2 or 3 chords repaeted throughout the song. often brass, sax, organ and backing singers, call and response.

Motown type of Soul, doo-*** harmonies, multitracking, orchestral instruments, backbeat rhythms, teenage lyrics, long structures, hooks, loud syncopated bass lines, dancy feel.

Atlantic soul, standard line up, backbeat rhythms, simple chords, simple tune, **** risky lyrics.

Funk blues notes, syncopation and distortion common. Musics faster than soul, rhythms sound clipped, bass guitars strings slapped to give a percussive sound, rhythm guitars play short rhythmic riffs using chords from blues scale, guitar and bass rhythms pklay polyrhythms, horns play short riffs.

Guitars dominate in heavy rock, there are blues style guitar riffs and blues scale, there are powere chords. drum rhythms are thumping.

Heavy metal is more distorted than heavy rock, there are more guitar solos and the melody is less important.

Glam rock is theatrical and glitzy (like Kiss featured in a recent Glee episode) it has a more rock n roll feel and has catchy hooks and tunes.

progressive rock has really long songs, it is often thematic (repeating the same musical ideas in different pieces), many strungout instrumentals and electronic sounds,

Punk rock is harsh angry and the lyrics are often shouted not sung, they have distorted crashing guitar lines, thrashing drum beats and are based on major scale notes

folk music is old and used to be everyday music, it is particular to each part of the world, tunes tend simple and move in step. All thenotes in folk belong to a key often modal or pentatonic. they are accompianied by simple chord patterns on acoustic intruments.

Some bands mix pop with folk e.g. enya and some mix punk with folk e.g. the pogues this is sometimes called, thrash folk.

Some performers write new material in folk style e.g. bob dylan and simon and garfunkel.

westren music fused with diffrent cultures

African styles- complex cross rhythms, repetition, unison backing vocals, call and response.

Latin american styles- offbeat rhythms, latin american instruments ( maracas, congos bongos, guiro, claves, cowbells), spanish sounding guitar bits.

India- instruments (citar and tabla), raga scales (like indian modes), Indian rhythm patterns( talas, drummers improvise faster rhythms over rhythm words called bols.) Bangra originally traditional