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American music
Contents
Spirituals
Ragtime
The blues
Jazz
Country-western
The musical
Rock-and-roll
Conclusion
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The origins of the American music
Since 1492
people have come to America from all over the
world and they have brought their music with them. This mixing of people and music has created unique American music – spirituals, ragtime, the blues, jazz, country-western, the musicals and rock-and-roll.
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Spirituals
Spirituals began in the 18th century in the
South. When the slaves sang white religious hymns they
added African rhythms to the music. This is how spirituals were born.
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Spirituals have become an important part of American
culture. There are spirituals choirs in many American universities.
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Ragtime
In the1890s black musicians started to play a
new kind of piano music called ragtime. It was
played
with a strong rhythm which was ‘ragged’ - not regular. The most famous songs are ‘The Entertainer’ and ‘The Maple Leaf’. Ragtime was especially popular from 1895 to 1920.
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Scott Joplin (1867-1917) was the greatest
ragtime composer and pianist. People called him ‘the king
of ragtime’.
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The Blues
Born on the Mississippi River Delta in
the early 1900s, the blues developed from African folk
songs and church music.
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William Christopher Handy, the ‘father of the blues’.
He made the blues popular all over America.
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Blues legend B.B. King with his guitar ‘Lucille’.
King is 86 years old but he still gives concerts.
He is considered to be one of most influential blues guitarists of all time.
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Jazz
Jazz was born in New Orleans at the
beginning of the 20th century. It developed from spirituals,
ragtime and blues, and its most important element is improvisation. Louis Armstrong, an all- time great jazz musician, once gave a classic reply to a reporter who asked him ‘What is jazz?’
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Louis Armstrong was born into a very poor
family in New Orleans. As a boy he sang
and danced in the streets of New Orleans in the hope to earn some money. He became famous in the 1920s. Many people think he was the greatest of all jazz musicians.
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Ella Fitzgerald is considered to be one of
the greatest female jazz singers of all time.
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In the 1920s many black jazz musicians moved
north, taking jazz with them, and Chicago and New
York became centres for music.
In the 1930s jazz reached its heyday of mass popularity. It was the time of big bands and a new kind of jazz called ‘swing’.
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Glenn Miller was the leader of a famous
big band which played swing music in the 1930s
and 40s. He also wrote music and played the trombone. The Glenn Miller Orchestra was reformed after the war and continues to play to this day.
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Jazz is changing all the time. In the
1960s and 70s jazz musicians began combining the rhythms
of rock-and-roll and electronic instruments with traditional elements of jazz. This kind of music is called ‘fusion’ or ‘electric jazz’.
Jazz today is more varied than ever before.
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Country-western
Another popular type of music which came out
of the American South is country-western, or country music.
It began in the 1920s, but its cultural origin and musical sounds are totally different from jazz. Country songs are usually accompanied by the guitar, banjo and fiddle.
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In the 1960s many people were against the
war in Vietnam. Country singers like Bob Dylan and
Joan Baez started writing anti-war songs and songs about the problems of American society. Country music became political.
Today, country music is played in clubs and bars in every city in the US.
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Taylor Swift is probably the most popular country
singer-songwriter in America today.
She has sold over 20 million albums.
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The musical
In the 1930s another American-born art form
appeared - the musical. It was a new form
of entertainment which combined acting, songs and dancing. In New York most musical shows were on Broadway. Many Broadway musicals - ‘Showboat’, ‘My Fair Lady’, ‘West Side Story’ - were later made into films.
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Rock-and-roll
The 1950s were an exciting time for music.
Teenagers wanted dance music with a good beat, and
so they began to listen to R & В (rhythm and blues). A white disc jockey, Alan Freed, was the first person to call this new music ‘rock-and-roll.’
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The first white group to make a rock-and-roll
hit record was Hill Haley and the Comets with
‘Rock Around the Clock.’
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Elvis Presley was called the ‘king of rock’.
He was a white boy who sang black music
with unusual natural talent and energy. He was polite and lonely; he didn’t smoke, he didn’t drink, and he didn’t eat meat, but many adults found his singing dangerous.
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Conclusion
Things change fast in the world of rock
music, but one thing is certain. Music brings the
people of the world together, and perhaps with music we can change the world and make it a better place.