It had to come to this. We have finally reached a stage of music with more names, songs, and ideas that are still in popular use today. This era of music that was discussed in chapter 9 and 10 of our text is truly a who's who of music that is still in the vernacular of most Americans. As I read through these chapters, I was excited to see so many names that I recognized. In previous chapters I would read about people and places that I might have heard of, or read about in some previous texts, but these names, places and songs can still be found on any radio today.
As I was reading chapter 9, I turned on my radio and tuned it to our areas classic rock station. This being 107.9 in the western Colorado area. I was amazed, however not really shocked that in a 15 minute period I heard music from Motown, the Beach Boys, and even the Beatles. These names Nd this music still hold a very prominent place in our modern music vocabulary. In fact, throughout this last week, I played some do this music for my students, who are all 6-8 graders, meaning that the oldest student I have in class was born 1999, and a lot of them recognized these sounds and names. For children who don't know much and have a ver limited music vocabulary it is interesting that they would recognize this kind of music.
So what moved this music so far so fast, and why is it still in popular circulation today. A few ideas come to mind that I would like to point out. The technology of this era is a major reason that we this music is still with us. The musical style and form is simple yet engaging. Finally, we still have many people in the world that were there when this music was popular. People who loved this music and have passed on their passion to the following generations.
The technology that has truly made this music stick with us today is simply the television. With shows like "The Ed Sullivan Show" and "American Bandstand", musical groups were able to move their music onto a national stage the likes of which the world have never seen. This allowed for fads to really come out and be heard. The text talks of surfer music, made famous by the Beach Boys, and the British Invasion as lead by The Beatles. Along with these fads we have popular dance music like "The Twist". Technology and communication became the way that music moved through our country. Interesting to note that this technology wave still leads the charge today. How much music is made popular now but the notoriety it might gain on Facebook or YouTube.
Much of the music from this tome also has simple melodies, simple harmonies and simple form construction. A great example do this is the classic "yesterday" by the Beatles. The harmonic structure of this piece is simplistic and the form is a basic binary form floating betweenan A section and B section. Simple, but powerful. Another example is Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone", where the form moves through a strophic verse and a repeating chorus. The music itself is not very complicated yet these two songs are beautiful and still popular in our vernacular today.
We also see that many people who were a part of what made this music popular are still living and in some cases writing and performing today. Their legacy is not only something that was written down or even just recorded. These artists are still here performing and talking about their music. Our writing prompt this week had us look at rehearsal techniques of the popular musician, and it was fun to see a lot do the video of people that are still around and that we can learn from.
This week has been a wonderful exercise in learning about why this type of music is so popular even to this day. It is my hope that this music will continue to be passed along to generations to come and that this genius of music writing, advertising, and promotion will still continue.
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