Notes are given a specific value of time in order to establish how long to hold that particular note. These values, along with the time signature (discussed in the next section) direct a musician on how to play the notes in a piece. After determining what note must be played, a musician must know how...
Music is written in notes on a staff or stave. These notes are A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. They do not go beyond G and do not necessarily start at A or end with G. Notes are placed on the staff to represent the pitch at which they are to be played....
Music theory is a set of practical disciplines that outline the methods and concepts composers, musicians, and others use in understanding, deconstructing, and creating music. Music theory allows musicians and composers to explain and describe elements found in any given piece, such as key signature, harmony, melody, and rhythm, Additionally, music theory helps composers and...
A drum is a musical instrument consisting of one or two stretched membranes, called heads, held taut across a bowl-shaped or tubular frame, called a shell, and sounded by percussion; that is, by striking the instrument with the hands or with sticks. The drum shell holds the skin or skins taut and also acts as...
The bass, also called the double bass is the largest and lowest-pitched member of the violin family. Also known as the contrabass, the double bass is usually about 1.8 m (about 6 ft) high and has four strings tuned to sound EE AA D G (EE = third E below middle C; G = second...
The guitar is a six-stringed instrument and a member of the lute family, having a flat, waisted body with a round sound hole and a fretted neck. The top three strings are usually made of gut or nylon; the others are metal. The strings are tuned E A d g b e1 (E = second...
The piano (also called the pianoforte) is a stringed keyboard musical percussion instrument, derived from the harpsichord and the clavichord. But it differs from its predecessors mainly in the introduction of a hammer-and-lever action that allows the player to modify the intensity of sound by the stronger or weaker touch of the fingers. For this...
There are four consistently dominant instruments across the most popular genres of jazz, blues, rhythm & blues, pop, country, and rock: piano or keyboard, guitar, bass, and drums. These instruments come in a wide variety of assortments and form factors and each contributes a unique element to music. To learn more about each, please follow...
Psychedelic rock is a distinct sub-genre of rock and roll that first appeared and gained wide popularity during the counter-cultural revolution, which began in its first incarnation in the 1950s when the children of the decade became teenagers and young adults. Common Psychedelic Rock Characteristics The musical characteristics of psychedelic rock are varied and often...
As a broad designation, the term rock commonly refers to music styles post-1959, predominantly influenced by white musicians. Rock music originated in the United States, but it has influenced and been shaped by a broad field of cultures and musical traditions, including gospel, blues, country, classical, folk, electronic, and pop music from Asia, Africa, and...
Country-and-Western music – often referred to simply as Country – is a major genre of American popular music, tracing its beginning to the early 1920s, and was developed by white Southerners. Country, a derivative of Southern Appalachia folk music, encompasses sub-styles such as Western swing, honky-tonk, bluegrass, rockabilly, and new country. Like many genres, country...
Disco was a genre of music that emerged in the United States in the 1970s. It quickly became a cultural phenomenon, with its distinctive sound and accompanying dance moves taking the world by storm. However, its rise to popularity was followed by a sudden and dramatic fall from its lofty heights. Origins of Disco The...
Reggae is a genre of music that originated in Jamaica in the late 1960s. It is characterized by its unique rhythm, which is heavily influenced by African rhythms, and is characterized by its use of the offbeat. The drums in reggae music are typically played on the backbeat, which gives the music its distinctive feel....
By the early 1960s, knowing the dollar value of rock-n-roll, the majority of what the music industry promoted as rock-n-roll was little more than a reproduction of the hard-edge, teenage-angst, innovation known as rock-n-roll. Instead of performers writing their songs, songs were written by professional composers, recorded by session or studio musicians, and sung by...
Rhythm-and-Blues or R&B is a medley of diverse, but similar, types of popular music genres produced and primarily supported by African-Americans beginning in the early 1940s. R&B embraces such genres as jump blues, club blues, black rock-n-roll, doo-wop, soul, Motown, funk, disco, and even hip-hop. The term rhythm and blues was first coined in 1949...
Blues originated during the late nineteenth century, promulgated by African-American performers as a secular musical genre. The genre incorporates a fusion of what are both dually individual genres and sub-styles: country or down-home blues, boogie-woogie, classic blues, Chicago blues (also referred to as urban blues), and modern blues. As with most traditional musical styles, the...
Jazz, perhaps the most complex and ubiquitous of music genres, is a type of music first developed by African-Americans in the first decade of the 1900s. Jazz music has a conspicuous stylistic evolution and enjoys a semi-unambiguous history. The genre developed contemporarily with blues and pop; consequently, these genres parallel and paradoxically coincide in many...
A slice-of-life short story about a gifted musician who hides a secret from those who most admire his mastery...
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