American Popular Music

1
American Popular Music

• Dr. Joseph Harchanko
• Week 1 (F)
• Chapter 2

2
Tin Pan Alley

• Songwriters and Song pluggers
• Vaudeville
• Paul Dresser and Harry von Tilzer
• James Bland and Plantation Songs

3
John Philip Sousa

• 1854-1932
• The March King
• Band music was the cornerstone of music and civic
  pride in the late 19th centure

4
After The Ball

• Charles K. Harris 1892
• Sold over 5 million copies
• What are the elements that make this a hit?
• What makes this piece more forward-looking to the
  20th century?

5
Ragtime

• Incorporation of African-influenced syncopation,
  Cuban habanera, and marching band oom-pah.
• Exoticisms added to otherwise bland popular
  tunes.

6
Schizophonia

• Gap between original context and meanings of
  music community and individual identity and its
  existence as sound, a purely acoustic phenomenon.
• Dehumanization or expanded humanization?

7
Hit records preceding WWI

• Sentimental songs a response to unsettling
  change such as immigration, social and
  geographical mobility, and technological
  innovation.
• Ragtime songs inspired by progressive change.
• -Starr and Waterman, p.36

8
Terms
Song w/ verses set to repeating melody, telling
a story.

• Ballads
• Verse
• Chorus
• Riffs
• Polyrhythm

Group of lines of poetic text, often rhyming,
exhibiting regular, reoccurring metric patterns.
Repeated section consisting of fixed melody and
lyrics, us. following verses.
Simple repeating mel. idea that generates
rhythmic momentum.
The simultanious sounding of 2 or more rhythmic
patterns, such as 2 against 3.